Crapo, Tester Hold Health Net Accountable for 'Poor Performance'

(U.S. Senate) – U.S. Senators Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) are leading a group of bipartisan Senators to demand the VA take action to hold Health Net, the contractor that helps run the Choice Program, accountable for its “frustrating and completely avoidable” customer service problems and late payments to community providers. 

Following years of Health Net’s poor performance and empty promises to improve its customer service, the Senators wrote to VA Secretary David Shulkin to urge him to take immediate action to guarantee that Health Net meets its contract requirements and fulfills its responsibility to our nation’s veterans. 

“Our home state providers deserve better than the miserable customer service provided to them by Health Net, who appears to be devoting even less attention to the Choice Program as its expiration nears,” the Senators wrote. “Moving forward, we expect VA to take immediate action to address our concerns so that the provider experience is improved. And if Health Net continues to underperform, we urge VA to immediately enforce penalties, including the potential discontinuation of any payments, until Health Net starts meeting all of its contractual obligations and most importantly, its responsibilities to America’s veterans.” 

Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) also signed the letter to Secretary Shulkin. 

The full text of the Senators’ letter is available below and online HERE.

The Honorable David J. Shulkin, M.D.

Secretary

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

810 Vermont Avenue N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20420

March 12, 2018 

Dear Secretary Shulkin, 

We are fed up.  In our view, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) management of the Health Net contract has been a failure.  While Health Net is the administrator of the Veterans Choice Program in our states, VA is ultimately accountable for Health Net’s poor performance.  

For three years we have worked with VA and Health Net to make the Veterans Choice Program more responsive to our home state providers who offer critical treatment and care to veterans when VA is unable to do so in a timely manner.  We have regularly intervened on behalf of providers who have struggled to be paid in a timely manner after treating veterans.  When dealing with Health Net, our providers have sat through lengthy call center hold times, had emails for assistance go unanswered and submitted lost paperwork over and over again.  These providers, many of them small, have routinely carried high VA balances because payment to them has not been a priority.  These frustrating and completely avoidable experiences have tarnished VA’s reputation with those community providers who have stepped in to provide care to veterans.  And more critically, they have contributed to a decreasing lack of trust by veterans and taxpayers in the VA’s ability to provide quality and timely care to veterans.    

Our home state providers deserve better than the miserable customer service provided to them by Health Net, which appears to be devoting even less attention to the Choice Program as its expiration nears.  Moving forward, we expect VA to take immediate action to address our concerns so that the provider experience is improved.  That means our providers need to have their calls answered without waiting on hold for hours, they need responses to their emailed requests for assistance and paperwork needs to be routed to the appropriate place.  And most importantly, they need to be paid for the services they are providing to our veterans.  Taking these urgent and critical steps would help rebuild the public trust that has been damaged by Health Net.  It would also help ensure that, once the Choice Program expires, VA is able to build the provider networks necessary to deliver community care in a much more timely and efficient manner.  And if Health Net continues to underperform, we urge VA to immediately enforce penalties, including the potential discontinuation of any payments, until Health Net starts meeting all of its contractual obligations and most importantly, its responsibilities to America’s veterans. 

We look forward to your prompt response.

Jon Tester

Mike Crapo

Richard Blumenthal

Sherrod Brown

Tammy Baldwin

Michael F. Bennet

Kirsten Gillibrand

Heidi Heitkamp

Bill Nelson

Debbie Stabenow

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