Open Recommendations

The Chief, Taxpayer Services, should revise the IRM to require that TAC assistors use all available resources, including contacting their manager, or another assistor, before denying taxpayers service and advising them to use similar tools at home because the IRS assistor is not trained.

The Chief, Taxpayer Services, should ensure that TAC managers enforce procedures for providing CSS cards at TACs.

The Chief, Taxpayer Services, should Ensure that TAC managers enforce procedures for wearing name tags at TACs.

The Chief, Taxpayer Services should ensure that TAC managers enforce procedures for treating non-English speaking customers properly at TACs.

Charge First-Class Mail rates for Ballot Mail because service is comparable to or exceeds First-Class Mail service.

Assess options to charge for the premium service provided for late arriving Political Mail or clarify policy around delivery expectations for this mail.

Finalize electronic Election and Political Mail reporting tools, written expectations for their use, and user guides in advance of the next federal election season.

Use carrier data to prohibit managers from completing the delivery all clear certification before carriers leave and arrive back from their delivery duties.

Work with District Managers to develop a plan to identify hub and spoke locations, including Regional Transportation Optimization sites, and communicate operational expectations in advance of the extraordinary measures period.

Consider additional incentives for using serialized Intelligent Mail barcodes and service type identifiers for mail service providers that mail ballots.

Create a method for scanning local turnaround ballots at delivery units.

Implement specific training for Ballot Mail service providers tailored to reducing common service performance exclusions.

Set specific exclusion thresholds for Ballot Mail.

Establish metrics to determine whether its implemented deliverables are improving efficiency and accuracy of the Agency’s disability programs, as intended.

Establish a plan of when and how it will implement the remaining deliverables provided under the contract, as well as how SSA will track progress of the implementation to determine whether the analyses, prototypes and recommendations provided in those deliverables improve SSA’s disability programs.

The VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System Director ensures the chief of primary care reviews, strengthens, and implements system Patient Aligned Care Team processes for tracking and following up on community care consults ordered, particularly diagnostic consults, to verify patients receive care and to review and act upon consult results, as clinically indicated.

The VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System Director reviews institutional disclosures conducted by the system over the past 12 months, including the patient’s institutional disclosure, and ensures these disclosures fully adhere to Veterans Health Administration Directive 1004.08, Disclosure of Adverse Events to Patients, October 31, 2018, including documenting the details of the adverse event and discussion points of the disclosure, and takes action needed to remediate disclosures that do not meet these standards.

The VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System Director ensures community care staff make the required three attempts to obtain patients’ community care records within 90 days of completed appointments, and monitors for compliance.

The VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System Director collaborates with the Kansas City VA Medical Center Director to review the frequency and circumstances of community care records being sent to the incorrect VA facility, develops, and implements a process for ensuring community care records are delivered to the correct ordering VA facility, educates staff on the process, and monitors for compliance.

The Under Secretary for Health establishes and monitors compliance with a process that ensures the Veterans Health Administration ordering provider receives urgent non-life-threatening abnormal test results from care obtained in the community, such as the diagnostic positron emission tomography scan results described in this report, within a time frame that allows timely attention and appropriate action to be taken.

The Veterans Integrated Service Network Director, in conjunction with the Veterans Health Administration National Center for Lung Cancer Screening Program Office, evaluates the VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System’s Lung Cancer Screening Program to ensure operational adherence to the Lung Cancer Screening Program requirements, and takes action as needed.

The VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System Director ensures the chief of primary care reviews, strengthens, and implements system Patient Aligned Care Team processes for tracking and following up on community care consults ordered, particularly diagnostic consults, to verify patients receive care and to review and act upon consult results, as clinically indicated.

The VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System Director reviews institutional disclosures conducted by the system over the past 12 months, including the patients institutional disclosure, and ensures these disclosures fully adhere to Veterans Health Administration Directive 1004.08, Disclosure of Adverse Events to Patients, October 31, 2018, including documenting the details of the adverse event and discussion points of the disclosure, and takes action needed to remediate disclosures that do not meet these standards.

The VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System Director ensures community care staff make the required three attempts to obtain patients community care records within 90 days of completed appointments, and monitors for compliance.

The VA Eastern Kansas Healthcare System Director collaborates with the Kansas City VA Medical Center Director to review the frequency and circumstances of community care records being sent to the incorrect VA facility, develops, and implements a process for ensuring community care records are delivered to the correct ordering VA facility, educates staff on the process, and monitors for compliance.