The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments still have not resolved care-coordination issues fully, according to an Oct. 6 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). As a result, ill, injured, or wounded service members and veterans often find themselves trying to wend their way through a confusing maze of bureaucracy in order to receive the treatment and benefits they have earned, the GAO stated. While VA made significant strides in implementing recommendations GAO made in March 2011 geared toward staffing to handle enrollment decisions and caseloads, the Defense Department still has yet to take similar sufficient action, the latest report stated. "Inadequate information exchange and poor coordination … has resulted in not only redundancy, but confusion and frustration for enrollees, particularly when care coordinators and case managers duplicate or contradict one another’s efforts," the GAO report stated.
