Veterans emergency care bills tied up with "sloppy procedures"

VA didn't pay some veterans' health costs, report says
USA TODAY
by Gregg Zoroya
March 7, 2014

Dozens of uninsured and disabled veterans owed compensation for emergency health care costs were erroneously turned down by the Department of Veterans Affairs, federal investigators say.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Federal law requires VA to pay for emergency care disabled veterans get at non-VA hospitals
Government pays benefits even if injury or illness is unrelated to service-connected disability
GAO attributes claims denials to sloppy procedures

Even as the Obama administration works to provide health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans, government investigators uncovered dozens of cases where the VA failed to cover emergency hospital costs for uninsured disabled veterans.

Government Accountability Office investigators say the series of errors committed by the VA could be examples of a broader problem in a specialized area of compensation.

The Department of Veterans Affairs must reimburse non-VA hospitals that provide emergency care to disabled veterans - such as for car accident injuries - if the veteran is uninsured, enrolled in VA health care and has received recent treatment at VA.

Federal law requires that such emergency expenses be covered by the federal government even if the injury or illness is not related to the veteran's service-connected disability.

But when GAO looked at a sample of 128 of these claims brought by non-VA hospitals in 2012 seeking reimbursement and that were later denied by the VA, investigators discovered mistakes in half of them, the report says.

The claims were brought to four VA hospitals - Washington D.C. VA Medical Center, White River Junction VA Medical Center in Vermont, Black Hills VA Health Care System in South Dakota and the North Texas VA Health Care System.
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