FEDE U.S. Government Accountability Office · Audits audits
Defense Health Care: Actions Needed to Assess Civilian Partnerships’ Contributions to Readiness
What GAO Found The Department of Defense’s (DOD) decisions to partner with civilian medical facilities to train military medical personnel for the battlefield are influenced by various factors that can support or hinder the use of partnerships, according to officials. One type of partnership that DOD can establish through an external resource sharing agreement allows active-duty providers to provide medical care to beneficiaries in civilian medical facilities within DOD’s network. Using these partnerships can reduce costs by avoiding certain professional fees and by keeping patient care within the network. However, DOD has not fully explored the benefits of increasing the use of these partn.