Improving Health Care for Servicemembers and Veterans

DOD and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) face challenges in meeting the health care and disability evaluation needs of servicemembers and veterans returning from military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To date, more than 30,000 servicemembers have been wounded in those operations, and more than 800,000 servicemembers have left active duty and become eligible for VA care.

Returning servicemembers and veterans have a range of health care needs, including care for injuries such as amputations and burns, as well as treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In recent years, problems have been identified with DOD and VA efforts to coordinate care for this population; manage their transition from DOD to VA care; screen, diagnose, and treat TBI and PTSD; and share medical records between the two departments.

In addition, DOD and VA operate separate disability evaluation systems that may each take months or years to complete. Although DOD and VA have taken steps to improve the health care delivery and processes for determining disability benefits, continued efforts and oversight are needed to ensure that returning servicemembers and veterans receive the care and assistance they need. For example, the discussion on Improving and Modernizing Federal Disability Programs in GAO’s 2009 update to the High-Risk Series, underscored the importance of carefully evaluating and managing a joint DOD/VA effort to reduce redundancy between their separate disability evaluation processes.

^ Back to topWhat Needs to Be Done

VA has acted on some of the recommendations that GAO made to improve VA's disability claims processing, but it is important that VA continue its efforts to ensure timely, accurate, and consistent claims decisions by undertaking a comprehensive review of Veterans Benefits Association's field structure for processing disability compensation and pension claims. VA's review needs to address staff deployment, opportunities for consolidating disability compensation and pension claims processing, and human capital and real property issues. While VA took action to screen for traumatic brain injury (TBI) of all Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans seeking care at VA facilities, GAO found that the TBI screening tool that VA was using had not been evaluated for its clinical validity and reliability in identifying veterans at risk for TBI. As a result, VA does not know how effective the TBI screening tool is in identifying veterans who are or are not at risk for TBI and whether the TBI screening tool would yield consistent results if administered to the same veteran more than once.

^ Back to topKey Reports

Veterans' Disability Benefits

Veterans' Disability Benefits

Veterans' Benefits

High-Risk Series

DOD and VA

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