According to a newly released report, the federal government wasted more than $100 million in duplicate checks. The checks were sent to doctors providing care for veterans.
There were more than $300,000 instances documented over a four-year span where the Veterans Health Administration paid the doctor bills and Medicare paid out the same doctor bills. Hundreds of thousands of duplicate payments were sent out from the government as a result.
In a new watchdog report from the Office of Inspector General, $128 million of taxpayer money went to paying veterans’ doctors twice for the same tab.
The report spanned from 2017 to 2021, with most of the duplicate payments happening since 2020. In 2020, the government program allowing veterans to seek care from private doctors instead of just Veterans Affairs expanded. The number of veterans seeking care from private doctors has more than doubled since then.
About 90% of the duplicate payments went toward typical checkups and doctor visits.
The watchdog report concluded that the VA and centers for Medicare don’t have a checks and balances system with one another to ensure bills aren’t being paid twice. The two government agencies don’t share information about payments and they don’t tell providers it should just bill either the VA or Medicare.
In response to this report, the Centers for Medicare released a statement saying they are now working with the VA to establish a data sharing agreement to cut down on double payments.
