VA Health Care: Reporting of Spending and Workload for Mental Health Services Could Be Improved

摘要

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides, or pays for, a range of mental health services for veterans. To effectively manage resources and ensure access to eligible veterans, VA needs complete spending and workload information for mental health services. This information is also important for congressional oversight GAO was asked to examine VA's mental health spending and workload. In this report, GAO examined for fiscal year 2009 (1) VA's spending for mental health services and (2) VA's workload for mental health services. GAO examined VA's reporting of mental health spending and workload data for fiscal year 2009 in its fiscal year 2011 congressional budget justification and whether VA reported these data in any other publicly available report. GAO analyzed additional mental health spending and workload data and interviewed VA officials.