Letting vets down: VA backslides on wait times, employee fraud

Sheer breadth of problems laid bare in new report by VA inspector general that identified nearly $4 billion in problems in just six months.

The agency charged with caring for America’s veterans has been backsliding in performance after making improvements from a scandal a decade ago, as patient wait times grow and numerous of its employees are caught swindling taxpayers or fudging statistics.

The sheer breadth of problems inside the Veterans Affairs Department were laid bare this month in a lengthy semiannual report by its inspector general that identified nearly $4 billion in losses and problems in just six months.

The issues ranged from a failure by the VA to recover more than $200 million in reimbursements from private medical providers to audacious criminal plots by employees and contractors ranging from stealing furnishings donated to homeless veterans to massive kickbacks. Investigations resulted in 104 arrests and more than 500 administrative actions in the first half of 2022.

Just before Memorial Day, for instance, Alisa Catoggio of Boca Raton, Fla., a former pharmacy technician and high-level executive assistant, pled guilty to taking part in a multimillion-dollar kickback scheme that went on for years undetected.

Catoggio admitted she participated in a scheme that paid approximately $40 million in kickbacks to patient recruiters in exchange for their referring prescriptions issued to a compounding pharmacy in Florida.

While inspections of individual medical centers showed some improvements in patient care, the inspector general still uncovered examples of egregious and deadly care of patients.

The VA hospital in Augusta, Ga., for instance, failed to detect the declining condition of a veteran after surgery, including malnutrition and alcohol withdrawal, before he died recently

“Prior to the patient’s surgery, primary care staff failed to provide sufficient care coordination and treatment,” the report said. “A provider failed to address the patient’s abnormal chest images and poor nutrition, and failed to communicate test results to the patient as required.

“A primary care nurse failed to respond to the patient’s secure message request for assistance two days before surgery. Additionally, a barium swallow test was not scheduled. The surgical team completed a preoperative assessment but failed to detect the patient’s overall poor health. During the patient’s hospital stay after surgery, medical-surgical nurses did not consistently assess alcohol withdrawal symptoms or administer medications as required.”

Members of Congress also are increasingly worried that patient wait times — the issue at the heart of the Obama-era scandal that started in Phoenix in 2014— are creeping back up, particularly for new patients.

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