# Audit of Community Care Consults during COVID-19
> **Audit** by Department of Veterans Affairs OIG · 2022-01-19
> *About: Department of Veterans Affairs*
## Report
- **Title:** Audit of Community Care Consults during COVID-19
- **Submitting OIG:** Department of Veterans Affairs OIG
- **Component agency:** Department of Veterans Affairs
- **Type:** Audit
- **Publication date:** 2022-01-19

## Summary

During COVID-19, VHA’s Office of Community Care (OCC) took steps to ensure veterans continued to have expanded access to health care in the community, as required by the VA MISSION Act of 2018. OCC issued policies to VA facilities to postpone nonurgent appointments and offer alternatives to in-person care, such as telehealth.


## Recommendations

- **Rec 1** (Closed): Develop guidelines requiring supervisors to use VHA systems to monitor documentation of efforts to contact patients to schedule an appointment and to take corrective action as appropriate.
- **Rec 2** (Closed): Establish a tool to monitor whether clinicians are properly indicating the appropriateness of alternative forms of care and whether staff offered them to patients when clinically appropriate.
- **Rec 3** (Closed): Reassess the frequency of and approach to its training for scheduling community care consults to VHA facilities as revisions are made to the various tools.
## Source
- [oversight.gov report page](https://www.oversight.gov/reports/audit/audit-community-care-consults-during-covid-19)
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