Va/Dod Health Care - More Guidance Needed to Implement Champus-Funded Sharing Agreements: Hehs-95-15 (Paperback)

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the extent to which Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services (CHAMPUS) funds are being used for health care resource-sharing agreements between the Departments of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Defense (DOD). GAO found that: (1) in February 1994, after nearly 3 years of negotiation, VA and DOD agreed on a framework for VA to treat CHAMPUS-eligible beneficiaries and receive reimbursement from CHAMPUS funds; (2) implementation of CHAMPUS/VA sharing agreements has been delayed because of disagreements between DOD and VA over VA hospital requirements; (3) neither DOD nor VA has conducted a systemwide search to identify additional opportunities for sharing agreements; (4) potential sharing opportunities have been missed because DOD hospital commanders have not used CHAMPUS funds for sharing agreements between their hospitals and VA hospitals and are unclear about their authority to do so; and (5) DOD needs to clarify the authority of DOD hospital commanders to propose sharing agreements using CHAMPUS funds, and it needs to provide instructions on developing and implementing such agreements.