GAO Suggestions On Veteran's Health Care and OTCs

The US General Accounting Office, in a recently-released study entitled Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care: Opportunities to Reduce Outpatient Pharmacy Costs, has suggested that the VA makes changes in the way its physicians prescribe and pharmacists dispense over-the-counter medicines to reduce outpatient pharmacy costs.

Among suggestions made by the GAO were a recommendation for dispensing of larger quantities of OTC medicines to reduce the number of prescriptions handled and filed, and limiting the dispensing of OTC products by mail. Copies of the report are available from the US General Accounting Office, PO Box 6015, Gaithersburg, Md 20884-6015, USA.