The Department of Veterans Affairs lacks a methodology
for making health care management efficiency savings
assumptions reflected in the President’s budget request
for fiscal years 2003 through 2006, the Government
Accountability Office has said.
It said the department was unable to back up the estimates
it made in support of the President’s funding requests for
those years.
VA officials said savings assumed in the requests were
merely goals used to close the gap between the cost associated
with VA’s projected demand for health care services and the
amount the President was willing to request, according to
GAO-06-359R.
It also said the department “lacks adequate support for the
$1.3 billion it reported as actual management efficiency
savings achieved for fiscal years 2003 and 2004 because it
lacked a sound methodology and adequate documentation for
calculating and reporting management efficiency savings.”
VA’s regional networks have reported savings as a result of
cost-cutting measures as management efficiency savings–but
VA lacks a reliable basis for determining whether it has
realized such savings reflected in the President’s budget
requests for fiscal 2003 and 2004, according to GAO.
It also said the department’s use of its savings calculation
for its national procurement initiatives is misleading
because VA calculates actual savings for the initiatives on
a cumulative basis and then compares them to savings figures
on an incremental basis.
