[inaudible conversations] good morning, everyone. The committee will come to order. I welcome our witnesses in person at those appearing distantly. We look forward to the testimony and getting a better understanding of where the department of Veterans Affairs and the thirdparty administrators are in administering the mission act. Also very interested in hearing more today about the caregivers implementation as well. Almost every member of our committee though not physically present at the moment, some are joining us in person and others will be joining us almost every member of the committee will be participating. The focus of todays hearing is the implementation of title i under the mission act by the department of Veterans Affairs, relating to the Veterans Community care program and the program of comprehensive assistance for family caregivers. Io i scheduled this hearing because of my dissatisfaction with the pace of mission implementation. While v. A. Officials were invited to part
Bali because we go back a ways as a change agent experienced in leading change in complex Health Care Systems and networks. He is committed to improving the Patient Experience and drives initiatives focused on clinical care, Quality Improvement and systems redesigned mouth at Johns Hopkins medicine. Fda, led the department in the transformational journey to provide veterans with easier access to both the va care in private or cared that he oversaw the vas community of care network, which includes about half a million providers, academics and Community Networks and expanded telehealth across our vast system of care, treating about 1. 5 million patients annually. A significant improvement that was done in terms of providing access to care and increasing access to care for veterans. He is a nationally recognized expert in hiv medicine and health equality. He has published over 150 abstract chapters in leading journals. He has made important contributions to the understanding of Patient En
Dr. Bahli helped. In october he left the va and is senior medical director. He talks about his experience. This is 50 minutes. Good evening everybody. It is my distinct pleasure to introduce doctor. And is a change agent. He is committed to improving the Patient Experience and drives initiatives focused on Clinical Care and systems redesign now at the john hopkins medicine. At va he lead the department in the trance formational journey to va care and private sector care. He oversaw which includes about half a million providers, academics and Community Net works. Increasing access to care for veterans. He is an expert in health equality. He has made important contribution to Patient Engagement in health care, influencing access and participation in care. He is Board Certified in Infectious Diseases. He received his bachelor and medical degrees at the university of florida. He is also completing internal medicine and Infectious Disease fellowship at the hospital at the university of penn
Seriously considered. Senator mccain has already referenced them. One is i think we have to take a hard look at overhead. The army but not just the army but the military across the board, all of the services to include department of defense are very very Large Organization with a big bureaucracy with a significant overhead. A second is acquisition. As already previously mentioned, theres a considerable amount of cost and in many cases waste in the acquisition process. We need to get that under control. And the third and final piece that i think is worth taking a look at theres a wide variety of emerging technologies that could in the outyears could lend itself to automated processes and reducing either manpower or manpower costs, compensation cost over time. Thats three big areas that would want to lock at if confirmed. We have russia creating a looming threat in europe, we have the pacific and chinas expansion or i should say increased activity there. We have the ongoing war in the mi
I gave them my Insurance Information and they came back and they said, we dont know. I would like to know how common that is and what is being done to try to let folks actually know what something costs. I might add, i had at the time a high deductible, so it was an important question about my outofpocket costs. The second question is Medicare Part d, when i noted it in the biography, mr. White was involved with in 2003, has a provision prohibiting the government from negotiating prices with the drug companies. And my question is, why is that still in the law . You want to take that one, ed . Why dont you start and ill do the first one. The second one real quick. The first one was, why cant they tell me what the price is . Like i said, forget about the email. Ask them what a price is and its like getting trade secrets out of cuba, right . Its next to impossible. What were seeing is that what the price is and what i owe are two different questions, right . So if i have coverage, i think