Bill would require VA to report discipline

WASHINGTON – Two senators introduced legislation Thursday that would force the Department of Veterans Affairs to report disciplinary actions against medical providers to a national database designed to prevent them from crossing state lines to escape their pasts and keep practicing.

The bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., would require the VA to report discipline within 30 days to state medical boards and bar the agency from purging negative records from clinicians’ personnel files as part of severance deals.

The bipartisan measure follows an investigation by USA TODAY that found the VA has concealed poor care and mistakes by its medical workers for years. The agency routinely scrapped firing orders and other records of poor performance in secret settlement agreements with departing clinicians.

Under a nearly 30-year-old policy, the VA reports discipline against only medical doctors and dentists to the national database — not nurses, podiatrists, physicians’ assistants or other types of practitioners. The agency can take several months, or even years, to report any providers to state boards responsible for regulating licenses and yanking them when necessary.

“The investigation’s findings are downright shameful, and we need action immediately to ensure that the VA does not hide medical mistakes or inadequate care,” said Heller, a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, along with Manchin.

VA Secretary David Shulkin vowed after USA TODAY’s report last month to overhaul agency policies for reporting problem health care providers.

“This commonsense piece of legislation ensures that incidents of malpractice do not go unreported to state licensing boards and the National Practitioner Data Bank,” Manchin said. “It also stops those who commit malpractice from receiving a settlement so they will quietly resign and become a provider outside of the VA.”