The organization released a request for proposals for new community care organizations and announced organizational and personnel changes at Veterans Health Administration that will take place over the next 18-24 months.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) made two major announcements on Monday that aim to improve health care for veterans.
Community care network changes
First, the VA announced it has released a request for proposals for new community care contracts to improve health care choice and quality for veterans.
The community care program enables veterans to access health care from non-VA medical providers at the department’s expense. Currently, about 40 percent of all VA care is provided through community care, the VA said.
Contracts signed in 2018 with health plans to serve as third-party administrators and manage VA’s community care program are set to expire next year. The request for proposals looks for new community care contracts to improve health care choice and quality for veterans over the next decade.
The VA said it is looking to offer more choices for veterans to receive care from national regional health plans and create better oversight of community care. The contracts will provide the VA with the data, technology, and systems to manage veterans’ care in real-time, drive innovation, and collaborate with the selected health plans to ensure that veterans receive the highest quality health care.
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In addition, the new contracts allow the VA to issue multiple competitive task orders over the life of the contract. This will allow the VA to adjust health plans, regions, contract requirements, and deliverables and ensure that health plans are empowered and accountable. The VA said that contractors that fail to meet the requirements can be replaced by other health plans to ensure continuity of services and no disruption of care to veterans or VA operations.
“VA has learned a lot about community care over the years, and we are putting that knowledge to use to help veterans with the next generation of community care contracts,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in the announcement. “This RFP will result in contracts that dramatically improve our ability to provide quality health care while ensuring Veterans can choose the care that’s best for them.”
Veterans Health Administration reorganization
The VA also announced plans to reorganize the management structure of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to improve health care for veterans, empower local hospital directors, eliminate duplicative layers of bureaucracy, and ensure a consistent application of policies across all department medical facilities.
The VA said it will provide specifics about the changes in early 2026 and expects the overhaul to take place over the next 18-24 months.
The news comes in the wake of a Washington Post report that the VA would eliminate 26,400 open health care positions that have been unfilled for a year. However, the VA said in a statement that the reorganization plans do not include staffing and operation changes at VA medical centers and clinics.
The reorganization aims to address the weaknesses found by independent reviews from the VA’s Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office. Those audits found that the organization’s “management structure is rife with middle managers who have overlapping responsibilities, slowing decision making and creating unnecessary burdens to serving veterans,” the VA said in the announcement.
As part of the plans:
- VHA Central Office will set policy goals and conduct financial management, oversight, and compliance.
- Operations Centers and Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs) will develop operational, quality, and performance standards that will guide VA’s more than 1,300 medical facilities.
The VA said the reorganization will better position the organization to focus on care delivery and result in more defined roles and faster decision-making for all VHA employees. Officials stressed that the reorganization is not a reduction in force or an attempt to reduce staffing levels at VHA, and VA does not expect a notable change in overall staff levels once it is complete.
“The current VHA leadership structure is riddled with redundancies that slow decision making, sow confusion and create competing priorities. In other words, when everyone is in charge of everything, no one’s in charge of anything,” Collins said. “Under a reorganized VHA, policymakers will set policy, regional leaders will focus on implementing those policies, and clinical leaders will focus on what they do best: taking great care of veterans.”