The Veterans Health Administration has seen costs associated with reimbursing travel expenses for veterans receiving VA healthcare services increase to $861 million in fiscal 2012 but it has not developed a process to reconcile approved travel expense claims with actual disbursed amounts, the department’s inspector general has said in questioning some costs.
The IG found material differences in mileage reimbursements paid compared with approved mileage reimbursements and said data reliability issues limited its ability to identify and reconcile the national variances between approved travel claims and paid claims.
According to VHA data, VA medical facilities paid approximately $89 million more in beneficiary travel than the facilities approved from January 2010 – March 2011, the IG said.
It said about $46.5 million of the discrepancy was due to miscoded expenses, but that about $42.5 million remained unexplained, and that VHA needs program controls to verify the accuracy of beneficiary self-reported information prior to claim approval.
VHA undertook efforts in 2010 to improve authorization and payment controls but those actions have not been completed. As a result, VHA continues to lack reasonable assurance that program costs are accurate and paid only to eligible veterans, the IG said.
The Under Secretary for Health agreed with recommendations to strengthen authorization, payment and oversight controls for the BTP and provided an action plan.