VETERANS’ HEALTH CARE - Preliminary Observations on VHA’s Claims Processing Delays and Efforts to Improve the Timeliness of Payments to Community Providers
, GAO obtained fiscal year 2015 data on the timeliness of VHA’s, Medicare’s, and TRICARE’s claims processing. GAO visited 4 of 95 VHA claims processing locations (selected on the basis of variation ... Due to increases in expenditures and utilization of VA care in the community services in recent years, VHA has had difficulty processing claims in a timely manner. In planning to consolidate its ... existing VA care in the community programs, as required by law, the agency said it will examine strategies for improving the timeliness and accuracy of its payments to community providers.<br ... Data processing hold back by technology limitation, workload and administrative burden ... US GAO analyzed all factors of slower processing and user unfriendliness that occur sometimes to the veterans healthcare. The main focus is data processing - and it has been proved that it can ... be failing not only because of technology, but also because of work-process design, staff and organisation.
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The National Government Service Centre – Has administration become more effective?
The purpose of this audit has been to investigate whether the Service Centre has made administrative operational support functions taken over from client agencies more effective, and to find ... explanations for the results so far achieved by the Service Centre. The audit has also aspired to illustrate how agencies that do not subscribe to the services regard their potential for doing so ... . These viewpoints have been analysed with a special focus on the conditions that applied to the Service Centre when it was formed and the measures taken by the Government and the Service Centre in the first years. ... ... Has Swedish public administration become more effective? ... in achieving economies of scale. In addition, the Government has instructed agencies to review the question of subscription and report their reasons for delaying subscription. ... The Service Centre – payroll and financial administration IT system for Swedish public agencies under the government – has achieved the target of a subscription rate of 25 per cent of the total ... number of state employees. However, subscription to the Service Centre was initially slower than the Government had predicted and meant lower revenues than expected in autumn 2013. The Service Centre
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The Shared Services Centre
The necessary environment for the efficient management of the Shared Service Center is lacking The department's administration of the Shared Services Centre (SSC) has been effective for sharing resources between the departments and delivering selected back-office services to a small client base. However, the governance arrangements established to oversight the SSC have not positioned it well for the future and the departments have not yet determined if the arrangement is efficient and resulting in savings. ANAO found instances where the advisory board of SSC was not consulted or involved in decisions relating to the strategic direction, financial arrangements and expenditure priorities. Information reported to the board did not focus on areas of strategic importance and the quality and completeness of this information could be improved. The mechanisms established for setting out responsibilities and obligations and ensuring transparency for services delivered by the SSC was weak. Service standards and levels were not fixed and can change. The delineation of responsibilities between the SSC and its clients was not clear and there was no commitment by the SSC to certify the quality of its control framework.
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Federal Human Resources Data
Internal control weaknesses may put mission at risk GAO audited the Enterprise Human Resources Integration payroll data warehose. The American auditors pointed at problems that may impede 'leverage of these data to meet its mission and allow others to make full use' of them. The critical internal contols areas to be improved in this cas are: completeness, accuracy, and validity of information, authorization, documentation, monitoring, results' evaluation.
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Management of IT security in systems outsourced to external suppliers
Security to be improved in IT processes outsourced to external suppliers When IT processes are outsourced to external suppliers, the authorities no longer have direct control of the IT security, but remain responsible for managing the security of the IT. Authorities that fail to manage IT security actively based on risk assessments, and omit to monitor the implementation of these requirements, will not be able to determine if the level of IT security in the outsourced systems safeguards their systems and data. This is how the conclusion of the Rigsrevisionen starts. The Danish auditors noticed improvement in the audited entities, but they add that tha majority of the auditees: can refine their requirements for and follow-up on access control and logging practices
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Homelessness
Homelessness grows despite increased spendings to reduce it British NAO analyses the root-causes of unsuccessful effort to reduce homelessness in England. They point at a side effect of the Goverment reform of welfare reform and at lack of full impact assessment.
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Federal Agencies Need to Address Aging Legacy Systems
Be aware of legacy IT risks The US government spends about 75 percent of the total amount budgeted for information technology on operations and maintenance. GAO reviewed Office of Management and Budget and 26 agencies, covering years 2010 through 2017 and recommends to develop a goal for spending measure and finalize guidance to identify and prioritize legacy IT needing to be modernized or replaced.
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Use of consultants and temporary staff
New skills needed in a longer term UK NAO: Used well, consultants and temporary staff can be an important source of specialist skills and capabilities that are uneconomic for departments to maintain in their permanent staff. Since 2009-10, the government has used spending controls to reduce its use of consultants and temporary staff, and by 2014-15 spending had fallen by £1.5 billion. However, spending has increased by between £400 million and £600 million since 2011-12, suggesting that this was more of a short-term reduction than a sustainable strategy. In the longer term, departments will need to develop workforce, skills and capacity plans to reduce their dependence on external skills. They will need to improve their strategic workforce planning to determine where they can deploy existing staff, where they need to recruit, and where they need to engage temporary resources. Without this, departments cannot demonstrate that they are achieving value for money from the use of consultants and temporary staff.
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OMB and Agencies Need to Focus Continued Attention on Implementing Reform Law
How to invest efficiently in IT IT investments are large and growing position in annual budgets. Historically, they have frequently failed, incurred cost overruns and schedule slippages, or contributed little to mission-related outcomes. GAO recommendations focus on the oversight and execution of the data center consolidation initiative, the accuracy and reliability of the IT Dashboard, and incremental development policies.
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Performance measurement by regulators
Performance measurement for regulators Primary adressees of this good practice guide - by the British NAO - are regulators, the public institutions established for making sure that an industry or system works legally and fairly. But we are sure that many more can find this guidance useful - including auditors. NAO presents a comprehensible framework for performance measurement and hints how to focus on influence that regulators can use.
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