Defense Health Care

Efforts to Manage Mental Health Care Benefits to CHAMPUS Beneficiaries Gao ID: T-HRD-92-27 April 28, 1992

GAO testified on Defense Department (DOD) efforts to assess the quality of mental health care being delivered to its beneficiaries. In GAO's view, DOD's management of mental health care has improved since the 1980s, and DOD's mental health care reforms are headed in the right direction. More effective controls are now in place over utilization of mental health benefits, DOD has developed a quality assurance plan for the future, and managed care techniques being tested around the country are starting to contain costs. GAO has substantial concerns, however, about the quality and appropriateness of mental health care being provided to DOD beneficiaries and believes that DOD needs to be more aggressive in dealing with problem providers. The kinds of problems that DOD is now uncovering are not new. Similar problems were found during the 1970s, and steps were taken at that time to address them. But little monitoring was done during the 1980s, and DOD now confronts the same problems.



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