Pappas Calls on VA to Address Longstanding Issues in Medical Purchasing Program

Congressman Chris Pappas (NH-01) reacted to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released today, which found that the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA) has failed to take meaningful action to address serious deficiencies in a key medical supplies purchasing program -- problems that have slowed the delivery of care to veterans.

Congressman Chris Pappas, who serves as the Chair of Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee for the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, and the Subcommittee's Ranking Member Jack Bergman (MI-01) requested a full audit of VA's Federal Supply Schedules (FSS) program. For years, GAO has called on the VA to improve a system that the government watchdog has assessed to be inefficient and inadequate.

"As the Chair of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee for the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, I am committed to doing everything I can to enhance the quality of care at the VA," said Chairman Pappas. "Unfortunately, the latest audit I requested shows that the VA has failed to make meaningful progress toward fixing the long-standing problems plaguing its inadequate and inefficient medical purchasing system. The failure to address this mismanagement is unacceptable, and I will continue to work with my colleagues and the VA to ensure that corrective action is taken immediately."

According to GAO's report, VA Acquisition Management: Steps Needed to Ensure Healthcare Federal Supply Schedules Remain Useful, the level of all VA healthcare purchases increased by 20 percent over the past five years. However, VA's use of its Federal Supply Schedules (FSS) remained flat over the same period. This means that VA has failed to adopt the FSS as a widespread solution to achieve affordable purchases.

In addition, GAO identified several challenges VA faces in managing its FSS program to effectively purchase medical supplies, including the following issues.

• VA does not have the controls in place to ensure that vendors provide accurate and complete sales data, which are used to calculate vendor fees that fund the program.
• VA's internal guidance is not comprehensive, and contracting staff are not adequately trained, with the last office-wide training three years ago.
• Key VA leadership positions remained unfilled as VA underwent major changes to its acquisition programs.
• VA rarely meets its timeliness goal for awarding FSS contracts and has not assessed whether its timeliness goal is even appropriate.
• VA does not effectively track whether the FSS offers healthcare goods and services from veteran-owned small businesses, a key goal of Congress and VA.
• Limited collaboration and knowledge sharing with the General Services Administration (GSA)—the agency responsible for providing the government with a simplified process for obtaining commercial supplies and services—amplify VA's problems with its FSS program. In fact, neither VA or GSA could find the basic documentation laying out the lines of authority between the two agencies.

Even worse, VA is simultaneously pursuing another solution for creating a modern VA medical and surgical supply procurement system. However, VA has not assessed the duplication between the two systems, calling into question the usefulness and efficiency of VA's FSS program.

To read GAO's report, visit https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-132