No Bid VA Pittsburgh Contracts Questioned

By Walter F. Roche Jr.



Veterans Administration officials in Pittsburgh failed to properly monitor three multimillion dollar no-bid contracts with a local physicians group and paid multiple invoices for anesthesiology and cardiac surgery services that could not be accounted for.
In a 26-page report issued Friday, the VA Inspector General said that the questionable payments were made under three contracts with the University of Pittsburgh Physicians with a combined value of $11.1 million. The contracts were in 2010 and 2011.
"Our review found that VAPHS was certifying invoices for payment without any substantive review or verification that the hours billed to the VA were actually rendered to the VA," the report states.
The auditors attributed the lapses to the lack of monitoring. In fact the official assigned to monitor work under the contract wasn't even at the same location.
Barbara Forsha, acting regional director of the Pittsburgh VA said in a response to questions said that her office took immediate action "to correct these shortcomings in our system. We are working to complete the recommendations the VA OIG set in the report as quickly as we can."
Wendy Zellner, spokeswoman for UPP said in an email response to questions,"We have a long an effective partnership with the VA and are committed to following all government rules and regulations. We are studying this report to see if any changes in our practices are necessary."

Calling discovery of the monitor's absence "particularly troubling," the auditors said they learned that the monitor's review consisted of simply matching up the hours billed with accompanying time sheets.
"The contracting officer was stationed at another facility and did not and could not conduct any real time monitoring of physician time sheet entries," the IG concluded.
The IG's own review of the time sheets, which included analysis of actual corresponding surgical records found that there were hours billed in anesthesiology and cardiac surgery that could not be accounted for.
In anesthesiology, for instance, a review of 20 days with billings totaling $80,659, found two entries for a total of seven hours that could not be accounted for.
Also cited by the auditors was the practice of physicians signing in up to 12 hours before records showed they actually began performing surgery.
One surgeon signed in at 6 a.m., but the surgery did not begin until 8:10 p.m.
"This practice went undetected for the entire two-year contract," the report states.
In another case, the VA was billed at a full time rate for a physician who was working only part time. Overpayments totaled $44,082, according to the report..
The report also questioned overhead payments to UPP totaling $847,733 which the IG found were not supported or documented to be in compliance with VA directives.
The auditors concluded that the questionable billing as recorded in the time sheets "should have been a red flag."