The Office of Special Counsel has credited a whistleblower’s disclosure for speeding up refunds to veterans who had been overcharged for health coverage copayments, saying that changes made in the wake of the resulting investigation have benefitted some 200,000 veterans.
The whistleblower, a former manager with VA’s office of finance, revenue operations, reported that the VA consolidated patient account centers “were failing to process timely refunds for veterans who had paid copayments for healthcare later determined to be service-related and covered by VA.
The whistleblower alleged that the VA had discovered but failed to act on a backlog totaling more than $110 million in potential refunds owed to more than 970,000 veterans for copayment charges cancelled between 2012 and 2020,” it said.
The OSC said that the VA in May told it that 98 percent of the backlog had been reviewed “and would be completed by the end of the month. As a result of the expedited review, nearly $20 million was refunded to more than 200,000 veterans, averaging $93.53 per payment.”
As it now does regularly when disclosures are proven out, the OSC recommended that the department pay the whistleblower a monetary award, for spurring “meaningful action to address a longstanding problem.
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