During a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing last week, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) questioned VA Secretary Doug Collins about private healthcare for veterans.
00:00Senator Cassidy. Hey, Secretary Collins. How are you, ma'am? I'm having a great time. Good to see you here.
00:08Listen, I was just with a press conference back home, with reporters back home. Okay. I was asked one, and if you need to get back to me on this, I am okay with that.
00:18But they asked me about the VA Servicing Purchase Program, or VASP, and there was a COVID-era program helping veterans who, because of the COVID-era shutdown,
00:28needed mortgage support. The Biden administration abruptly ended it two years ago, according to NPR, leaving veterans in the lurch.
00:39There was something put in the interim. Now, apparently, Congress has not filled that void.
00:45So I'm asking you about this, and if you have to get back to me, that's fine, but also kind of challenging the members of this dais.
00:53If Congress needs to step up and do something, then hopefully we will be able to do something.
00:57Let me turn it to you.
00:59Yeah, the VASP program is something that we do not need to be in the mortgage side that we were with.
01:04The VASP program requires us to take on, so we, on May 1st, did end that part.
01:08It was a discretionary part. It was from ours. We did not have, that's not appropriated funds.
01:12It was used and generated from inside. We don't need to be in that business.
01:16I know there's been a lot of discussion on some legislation that is coming through, dealing more partial claims.
01:21It can actually give the veteran a help in the situation that they're in without having to go into the situation that VASP created.
01:27So that's the story and where we're at right now with that.
01:31Congress does have a big role to play in that.
01:32We look forward to seeing how that legislation, especially the partial claims, comes through.
01:36Sounds great.
01:36Next, because Senator Hassan was saying, okay, we need to have some sort of objective analysis, you would agree we need an objective analysis.
01:44Believe me, I think all of us would say the VA needed some improvement.
01:49So thank you for taking on that big job.
01:51One thing that I've been proposing is something called VETPAC, which would be patterned after MedPAC and MACPAC, which gives advice from an independent board objectively to the public and to Congress as to how to reform, in the case of these two programs, Medicare and Medicaid, preserving benefits but doing it more cost-effectively for the taxpayer.
02:16Senator Hirono and I have suggested something called VETPAC, and we've reintroduced that this year.
02:25My question for you is, we had submitted it for the legislative review.
02:31Your folks said they liked it, but we've not yet gotten the technical assistance.
02:36So it's something that's bipartisan, that would address a lot of the concerns being up here to give us objective reality, and you guys like,
02:44but we've not gotten our technical assistance, so just a request that, by golly, you walk out here, you call up somebody and says,
02:52hey, Cassidy and Hirono want that technical assistance, give it to them.
02:54I think they're hearing that right now.
02:56That's great.
02:57It always helps when you say it, too, after you walk up the door.
03:00Okay, we'll get the technical assistance to you.
03:02That's great.
03:03Thank you, sir.
03:04Lastly, one thing that I've been concerned about, and to see where you are on this, I'm a doctor, and I like the fact that veterans, if they're not near a VA facility, can go to the private sector.
03:15But there's not been a good utilization review or prior authorization.
03:19Prior authorization can be a bad word, but I just know from experience that if someone goes someplace and there's no limit on the amount of testing that the medical facility can order,
03:30there's going to be a lot more tests ordered, and sometimes they're inappropriate, and sometimes they bring on complications.
03:36Does that make sense?
03:37It does, and I think that's one of the things that we're looking at, especially in the community care working group that we have currently going,
03:42is making sure that we're looking to make sure that those equities are in balance as far as making sure the veteran gets what they need.
03:49The doctors have their authorization.
03:50We also have an issue, especially in community care, that is something I think you and I have spoken of, too, and that's our third-party administrator system,
03:58which tends to be something that is a multiple complaint by many in the system because it is the sort of conduit between the VA and the community, and it's not been working as it should.
04:10But what about my first week that I got there, one of the things that I did find out was is the groundwork had not been put in place to actually renew to do the renewal of contracts this year on those third-party administrators.
04:21There was supposed to have been work done in the prior.
04:24So we had to delay that, go to the extra year, so we're sort of stuck in a year here in which we didn't ask for.
04:30But it's now actually being able to get to the part that we're putting in questions.
04:34We're going to have a contract that's going to be much better in that authorization side, much better in getting the VA and the community on the same page.
04:41I think you're working at least 80-hour work weeks, and so thank you for doing that on behalf of our veterans.
