Page 1 GAO-25-108071 VA Priority Recommendations
of
May 5, 2025
The Honorable Douglas Collins
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
810 Vermont Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20420
Priority Open Recommendations: Department of Veterans Affairs
Dear Secretary Collins:
Congratulations on your appointment. The purpose of this letter is to call your personal attention
to five areas based on GAO’s past work and 29 open priority recommendations, which are
enclosed.
1
Additionally, there are 198 other GAO open recommendations that we will continue
to work with your staff to address.
We are highlighting the following areas that warrant your timely and focused attention.
Specifically:
Improving timely access to the Veterans Community Care Program. Since 2012, we and
others have identified challenges the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has faced providing
timely access to health care for veterans, such as not specifying the maximum amount of time
veterans should have to wait to receive care via the Veterans Community Care Program.
2
The
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) must ensure that veterans receive timely care under this
program.
We recommended that VA establish an achievable wait-time goal, develop an appointment
scheduling process, and align its monitoring with the time frames established in the community
care appointment scheduling process. Implementing these three recommendations would help
VA assess its performance and promptly resolve any identified problems to improve the
timeliness of veteran appointments, thereby improving the Veterans Community Care Program.
Enhancing acquisition management. Federal agencies, including VA, face significant, long-
standing challenges in acquisition management that increase the risk of waste and
mismanagement. As a result, VA acquisition management has been on GAO’s High-Risk List
since 2019. We previously testified that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed problems in VA’s
supply chain management.
1
GAO considers a recommendation to be a priority if when implemented it may significantly improve government
operations, for example, by realizing large dollar savings; eliminating mismanagement, fraud, and abuse; or making
progress toward addressing a high-risk or duplication issue.
2
In response to the VA MISSION Act of 2018, VA established the new Veterans Community Care Program in 2019.
See VA MISSION Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-182, tit. I, § 101, 132 Stat. 1393, 1395 (2018).
