An investigation by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) has found no evidence of a mass purge of records regarding MRI exam requests at a VA facility in Los Angeles.
In 2014, the conservative government watchdog site Judicial Watch published an article charging that it had obtained internal VA documents regarding a nationwide purge of all outstanding orders for MRI exams that were older than six months. The article focused on the VA West Los Angeles Medical Center and charged that national VA administrators had ordered the purge due to a growing backlog of MRI exam requests that couldn't be performed.
The VA facility was receiving 3,000 requests a month for imaging exams but only had resources to perform 800, according to the Judicial Watch story. The order to purge the records was a means of reducing the backlog, the article charged.
In a June 10 statement released by OIG, VA investigators refuted the charges that there was a mass purge or destruction of MRI records. Each of the 1,474 orders that OIG investigators reviewed was canceled individually, and investigators noted that exam orders cannot be deleted or destroyed from the facility's computer system.
In addition, OIG found sufficient evidence that the cancelations did not affect patient outcomes, although it did identify concerns about quality of care in situations where a delay or the inability to schedule an MRI exam placed patients at risk of more complicated and prolonged management.
Investigators found 170 cases of MRI orders in 2008 that were still pending, and they also found that the Los Angeles center had not implemented a process to cancel orders older than one year. The facility's director should ensure that radiology department managers confirm that exams are scheduled and completed within the VA's time frame, OIG recommended.
OIG also recommended that radiology department managers periodically review pending lists of MRI exams to ensure timely scheduling, implement a consistent procedure for canceling orders for MRI exams, and notify referring physicians of canceled MRI orders. The agency also advised that radiology clerical staff annotate the reasons why MRI orders were canceled in the electronic health record.
