Modern Healthcare April 27, 2018
The Veterans Affairs medical system is working as well or better than non-VA care, researchers with the RAND Corporation found in a study released on Thursday, with the caveat that there was “high variation” in quality across facilities.
The study, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and mandated by the 2014 law that established the VA Choice program, comes as Congress inches toward expanding the VA Choice program.
On average, VA hospitals performed the same or “significantly better” than non-VA hospitals on almost all patient, mortality and effectiveness measures, researchers found. But on average they had worse readmissions.
For outpatients, VA facilities performed better than commercial and Medicaid HMOs; and better or similarly to Medicare HMOs.
Researchers, who...
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