Youre watching live on cspan. Before we begin this hearing, guests and viewers should be advised that this hearing will discuss the medical abuse of women in the custody of the u. S. Government and that the subject matter is deeply distressing and highly sensitive. 18 months ago, i launched a p. S. I. Investigation focused on the medical treatment of women detained by the department of homeland scus. Id like to thank Ranking Member johnson and his staff for their contributions to this bipartisan investigation. Our findings are deeply disturbing. It is the bipartisan finding of the subcommittee that female detainees in georgia were subjected by a d. H. S. Contracted doctor to excessive, invasive, and often unnecessary gynecological surgeries and procedures with repeated failures to obtain informed medical consent. This is an extraordinarily disturbing finding. And in my view represents a catastrophic failure by the federal government to respect basic human rights. Among the serious abus
Thank you all for your attendance governor. Senator osoff we will call our second panel, dr. Stuart stewart smith, dr. Pamela hearn and honorable Joseph Cuffari as the office of Inspector General. Custom to swear in all witnesses. I would ask you to please stand and raise your right hands. Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give before this subcommittee is the truth, whole truth so help you god. We will be using a timing system. Your written testimonies will be put in the record and limit your speech to five minutes. Dr. Smith, you may begin. Would you mind moving that microphone a little bit closer. Mr. Smith you for the opportunity top appear before you today. We are committed to providing Health Care Services in accordance with nationally recognized standards. The work force has 1700 Health Care Provider positions comprised of Civil Servants and Commission Corps officers and contractors. These positions represent a wide array of Health Care Officials throughout the Uni
That we are developing a fly to medicare only, medicaid and private insurers are free to develop their own policies on these kinds of issues. Medicare advantage is a little different, and i dont want to get into Medicare Advantage responsibilities are. But they are medicare plans. So, policies that apply to medicare a apply to them. I dont know the specific context. I do know we have had a number of what we call opendoor calls to and from the Hospital Community and others about the application of the rule as a part of trying to educate all of the people that are affected and we have brought Medicare Advantage expert into those to help answer those questions. Just to follow up on that, medpac looked at as a couple years ago about an observation, and because of the increase in observation, which they had Found Committee also looked at whether the recovery audit contractors, medicare recovery audit contractors scrutiny seemed to be driving this allowed. And they looked at a broader segmen
Well to insure the veterans needs are met, that that nonva provider is respectfully working with a veteran, her or his family, to get into care. Thank you. The gao also reports that there is a consistent problem across vha with policy and procedures for handling noshows and cancelled appointments. Im aware that va, that you are working on an update to this scheduling policy. When do you anticipate this revision, revised po ills to be released and well address the noshow consistently throughout the va system and cancelled appointment sngs. I expect it will, sir. We had a Team Last Week reviewing the existing policy we have today and to determine whether or not we should rescind that policy and replace it with a clear, declaretive set of instructions for our schedulers in the front line. We expect to take that action. We will replace that policy with a revised policy. That allows us to have much more concrete sets of instruction on how to schedule, specific instructions for what to do, f
Ruhle this morning. Joint investigation. And so it starts, the Senate Intelligence committee holding its first hearing on russian meddling shortly, unlike the confusion and distrust in the house, both sides in the Upper Chamber vow to work together. I have confidence that we, together, are going to get to the bottom of this. Vladimir putin speaking out this morning, calling all of the allegations lies. Making it official, ivanka trumps new role in the white house has a lot of folks crying conflict. New questions this morning about mixing family and government business. Is it ethical . Is it smart . And going it alone, on health care, House Speaker paul ryan in a brands new interview says hes worried President Trump may work with democrats. But we start today with the Russian Investigation, a Senate Intelligence committee set to kick off a new hearing, roughly an hour from now. This while just moments ago, russian president Vladimir Putin telling cnbc he had nothing to do with the u. S.