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GAO-04-495R 1 (2004-02-27)

handle is hein.gao/gaocrptapzq0001 and id is 1 raw text is: SGAO Accountability * Integrity Reliability United States General Accounting Office Washington, DC 20548 February 27, 2004 Congressional Committees Subject: DOD and VA Health Care: Incentives Program for Sharing Resources Combined, the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provide health care services to about 12 million beneficiaries at an estimated cost of about $53 billion for fiscal year 2004-$26.7 billion for DOD and $26.5 billion for VA. In 1982 the Congress passed the VA and DOD Health Resources Sharing and Emergency Operations Act (Sharing Act) to promote more cost-effective use of health care resources and more efficient delivery of care.' Specifically, the Congress authorized military treatment facilities and VA medical centers to enter into sharing agreements to buy, sell, and barter medical and support services. To further encourage on-going collaboration, the Congress, in section 721 of the Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 20032, directed the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish a joint incentives program to identify and provide incentives to implement, fund, and evaluate creative health care coordination and sharing initiatives between DOD and VA. To facilitate the program, each Secretary is required to contribute a minimum of $15 million from each department's appropriation into an account established in the U. S. Treasury3 for each fiscal year from 2004 through 2007. DOD's TRICARE Management Activity and VA's Medical Sharing Office administer the incentive fund program. The offices have jointly issued a request for proposals from DOD and VA medical facilities around the country. The NDAA requires that we submit a report on the implementation and effectiveness of the program by February 28, 2004, and by February 28h for each year thereafter that the program is in effect. As discussed with the committees of jurisdiction, since the program is in its initial development stage, our objective was limited to reviewing the status of the program's implementation phase-primarily the process for selecting proposals-during the first five months of fiscal year 2004. To do so, we reviewed the DOD's and VA's plans for implementing the DOD-VA Health Care Sharing Incentive Fund-including proposal submission guidelines and evaluation and selection criteria-and interviewed agency officials from DOD and VA involved 'Pub. L. No. 97-174, 96 Stat. 70. 2 Pub. L. No. 107-314, §721(a)(1), 116 Stat. 2589, 2595 (2002). 3 DOD-VA Health Care Sharing Incentive Fund. GAO-04-495R DOD and VA Incentives Program for Sharing Health Resources

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