VA frequently contracts with outside health care providers and while recent studies have disclosed problems with the department’s development of contracts for clinical services, there has been little scrutiny of how VA monitors and evaluates the quality of care provided by contractors, GAO has said.
After reviewing 12 contracts from four VA medical centers, GAO said they all contained performance requirements that were lacking in detail in six categories, such as type of provider or clinical practice standards.
Contracting officials also lack tools, such as standard templates, that provide examples of the performance requirements that should be included in common types of clinical contracts, according to GAO-14-54.
Further, it said contracting officer’s representatives, or CORs,say there is too little time to monitor clinical contractors’ performance effectively, with contract monitoring being a collateral or secondary duty.
The VA agreed with recommendations to develop and disseminate standard templates that provide examples of performance requirements for clinical contracts, revise guidance for CORs to include workload information, modify COR training, and improve the monitoring and oversight of clinical contracts.
