Lawmakers Push Veterans Affairs to Reevaluate Contracts for Medical Disability Examinations

WASHINGTON, July 1, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Veterans Evaluation Services (VES), a national and international provider of medical disability examination (MDE) services for veterans, announced that U.S. lawmakers have called on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to reevaluate contracts that lack proper competition, which could slow down the delivery of disability benefits for veterans.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) and Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX) individually wrote to the VA to highlight that several recently awarded contracts, which were to be made to two separate companies to ensure competition, were actually awarded to QTC and VetFed, which are "essentially one entity," Flores wrote.

VA awarded 12 contracts in March, totaling $6.8 billion for the enterprise-wide Medical Disability Examination Program under its Public Law 104-275, aiming for a major step forward in improving the disability examinations experience for veterans. Two firms in each district would be awarded these contracts and each would receive a guaranteed 35 percent of the MDEs in that district. QTC and VetFed received the majority of the awards, though VetFed refers its evaluations to QTC, negating competition, Poe wrote in his letter. QTC is a unit of Lockheed Martin.

"Our veterans deserve nothing less than the best MDE services that the VA can arrange, and robust and transparent competition in all Districts will ensure that the VA is able to deliver the best in MDE service to our Veterans," Poe wrote.

VES has filed a protest with the General Accounting Office (GAO) regarding the contract awards in the districts involving QTC and VetFed, and expects a decision in July.

In their letters, Poe and Flores also note that VES was the only bidder that received a rating of "Excellent" in every criteria considered by the VA. VES' timeliness is currently around 15-days, while QTC and VetFed have been around 40 days, Poe and Flores note.

Copies of the letters are available on request.

About VES

VES honors and serves America's veterans and active-duty claimants by providing quality and timely MDE reports through fair and objective evaluations performed by trained professionals in a respectful and hospitable environment. VES is a veteran owned service company and key members of our team across the nation are veterans who proudly served our country. We are proud to be American and we are proud of our service. As veterans ourselves, some of us having gone through the VA disability claims process, we understand that our real customers are the veterans who sacrificed for their country and deserve our utmost respect, compassion and care. VES^® has a 97% veteran satisfaction rating based on data received from the latest anonymous veteran satisfaction survey cards. This is the highest veteran approval rate in the industry.

SOURCE Veterans Evaluation Services