Feds wrote $128M in duplicate checks to docs, report finds

By AMANDA SEITZ
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government wrote duplicate checks to doctors who provided care for veterans, costing taxpayers as much as $128 million in extra payments, according to a new watchdog report out this week. In nearly 300,000 cases, private doctors were paid twice — once by the Veterans Health Administration and another time by Medicare — for the same care provided to veterans from 2017 to 2021, the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found in its report. There’s been a spike in those duplicate payments since 2020, when the program that allows veterans to seek care from private doctors was expanded.