Federal Reports

The U.S. Postal Service’s mission is to provide timely, reliable, secure, and affordable mail and package delivery to more than 160 million residential and business addresses across the country. The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General reviews delivery operations at facilities across the country and provides management with timely feedback in furtherance of this mission. 

This interim report presents the results of our audit of delivery operations and property conditions at the St. Charles Main Post Office in St. Charles, MO. We selected the St. Louis area based on a congressional inquiry issued April 1, 2025, from the U.S. senators and representatives from Missouri to conduct an audit of post offices and distribution centers in the St. Louis metro area. The St. Charles MPO is in the Kansas- Missouri District of the Central Area and serves about 50,902 people in ZIP Code 63301, which is considered a predominantly urban area. Specifically, 49,662 (98 percent) live in urban communities and 1,240 (2 percent) live in rural communities.1 The unit also services ZIP Code 63302 for Post Office Box routes.

The U.S. Postal Service’s mission is to provide timely, reliable, secure, and affordable mail and package delivery to more than 160 million residential and business addresses across the country. The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General reviews delivery operations at facilities across the country and provides management with timely feedback in furtherance of this mission. 

This interim report presents the results of our audit of delivery operations and property conditions at the Creve Coeur Branch in St. Louis, MO. We selected the St. Louis area based on a congressional inquiry issued April 1, 2025, from the U.S. senators and representatives from Missouri to conduct an audit of post offices and distribution centers in the St. Louis metro area. The Creve Coeur Branch is in the Kansas-Missouri District of the Central Area and serves about 33,550 people in ZIP Codes 63124 and 63141 which are considered urban communities.

This Office of Inspector General (OIG) Healthcare Facility Inspection program report describes the results of a focused evaluation of the care provided at the VA Spokane Healthcare System in Washington. 

This evaluation focused on five key content domains:
     •    Culture
     •    Environment of care
     •    Patient safety
     •    Primary care
     •    Veteran-centered safety net

The OIG issued one recommendation for VA to correct identified deficiencies in one domain:
   1.    Environment of care
     •    Clean and soiled utility item storage, cleanliness, and expired item disposal
 

VA can authorize veterans to receive care in the community in specific circumstances. After the care occurs, the community provider must return associated medical records to VHA and community care staff close the consult. If records are not received, staff must administratively close consults (that is, update the status from “open” to “complete”) to indicate the veteran received care and make three requests for the records within 90 days of the appointment. The VA OIG reviewed whether VHA staff took appropriate action to retrieve and document medical records from community providers and import the records into veterans’ electronic health records.

The OIG found that, as of December 16, 2024, VHA closed nearly 3 million community care consults for appointments scheduled to occur between October 1, 2023, and April 1, 2024. Among these, over 2.4 million (82 percent) had medical records attached, and nearly 1 million were administratively closed (34 percent). In addition, for the same period, VHA had 71,447 open consults, virtually all of which were more than 90 days beyond the scheduled appointment date.

According to the OIG’s analysis, 62 facilities imported 90 percent or more of medical records for completed community care consults into veterans’ electronic health records. However, 11 facilities imported the records less than 60 percent of the time.

Staff said competing priorities reduced the amount of time available to request and process incoming records. Once records were received, community care staff did not always use the Consult Toolbox to document the receipt, and related policy was both unclear and inconsistently used. Furthermore, VHA facilities varied in meeting timeliness metrics.

VHA concurred with the OIG’s 10 recommendations (including concurrence in principle to recommendation 2) to direct the Office of Integrated Veteran Care to correct identified deficiencies related to processes, internal controls, timeliness, and oversight.