Providing Veterans With Service-Connected Dental Problems Higher Priority at VA Clinics Could Reduce Fee-Program Costs

GAO was requested to review selected aspects of the Veterans Administration's (VA) dental program.

The review showed that fewer veterans with service-connected dental conditions would be referred to private dentists and, as a result, substantial savings would be achieved if VA: (1) established priorities for providing dental care in accordance with the Veterans Health Care Amendments of 1979; (2) insured that care was provided only to veterans eligible for care; and (3) made better use of its dental personnel. The fee-basis was intended to be used only if a veteran was unable to obtain care from a VA facility because of geographical inaccessibility or because of the inability of the VA facility to provide the type of care required. However, VA uses the fee program primarily as a means of expanding its ability to provide routine dental services to inpatients with nonservice-connected dental conditions. By reducing the number of ineligible veterans provided dental services, VA clinics could increase their capacity to treat outpatients with service-connected dental conditions and further reduce fee-basis referrals. In a 1973 report, GAO stated that VA could reduce the number of fee-program referrals by increasing the productivity of VA dental clinics.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Robert A. Peterson Team: General Accounting Office: Human Resources Division Phone: (202) 275-6207