Dive Brief:
- Research has found that VA employees in several states received million-dollar bonuses last year despite the systematic problems with the agency involving cover-ups of treatment delays.
- The biggest bonuses were distributed in the District of Columbia, where they added up to more than $9.25 million, followed by Ann Arbor, MI with payouts of $390,000, and Bay Pines, FL, where VA employees took in $365,000.
- Meanwhile, Ohio VA hospital employees cut more than $6 million in bonuses last year. While overall bonuses dropped about $1 million between 2013 and 2014, the average 2014 bonus was $700, with 20 topping $5,000.
Dive Insight:
These bonus payments seem to be part of a culture which hasn't changed despite national attention to the agency's failings and the departure of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. State VA organizations like New Mexico's are an example of everything that's wrong with the organization. Specifically, the New Mexico VA awarded its director nearly $9,000 in 2013, and almost 100 more employees got a total of more than $2.4 million. This took place in an organization which, one would think, wouldn't have dared to dole out bonus money, as the New Mexico VA had already admitted that during this period, almost 3,000 patients were assigned doctors they were never able to see in person.
In an effort to make some real changes, VA Secretary Robert McDonald is on a recruiting tour passing through California, North Carolina, and Vermont, during which he hopes to fill gaps in the VA system by recruiting medical and nursing students. His organization has also commended the removal of VA officials (though oddly, not Sharon Helman, director of the embattled Phoenix facility that brought national attention to the scandal). It appears there's much more work to be done in order to change the management culture of the VA to the point that such a scandal never occurs again.