VA Mental Health: VHA Improved Certain Prescribing Practices, but Needs to Strengthen Treatment Plan Oversight

Abstract

VA's mental health care providers have options, such as medication and therapy, to treat veterans with mental health conditions. VA has taken steps to improve mental health treatment, such as prescribing medications with dangerous side effects less frequently. However, VA doesn't monitor whether providers are documenting that they have considered different options before deciding on a treatment plan, as guidance suggests. Providers are also supposed to document treatment plans in an easily identifiable way in veterans' medical records, but VA hasn't given them guidance on how to do this. We recommended that VA address these issues.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 17, 2019
Accession Number
AD1155048

Entities

People

  • Draper A. Debra

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accountability
  • Antidepressants
  • Anxiety Disorders
  • Clinical Trials
  • Congress
  • Department Of Veterans Affairs
  • Depression
  • Diseases And Disorders
  • Drug Abuse
  • Governments
  • Handbooks
  • Health
  • Health Care
  • Health Services
  • Medical Personnel
  • Mental Health
  • Mental Health Services
  • Mood Disorders
  • Pharmacies
  • Predictive Modeling
  • Psychotropic Drugs
  • Risk Factors
  • Therapy
  • Tranquilizing Agents
  • Traumatic Stress Disorder
  • United States
  • United States Government

Fields of Study

  • Medicine

Readers

  • Medical or Health Care Field.
  • Systems Analysis and Design