After lawyers advised the Department of Veterans Affairs  to stop reporting data to Medicare’s Hospital Compare Web site this summer it did so, although  it’s legally required to report that data to that Medicare site.

A 2014 law  required  the department to submit substantial amounts of data to be posted on Hospital Compare.

Joe Francis, the VA’s director of clinical analytics and reporting, told USA Today that  Department of Health and Human Services lawyers advised the VA to stop reporting the data. The two agencies are working on a deal to manage information-sharing, according to the article.

“It’s deeply frustrating to us, and it’s our commitment to get back online as soon as we can,” Mr. Francis told USA Today. HHS told the paper that an agreement is expected “shortly,” though neither organization offered a timeline for the VA to resume reporting data to Hospital Compare.

Further, the VA last February took down its own hospital-comparison data from its Web site. The data are still available online for download, in 140 spreadsheets, but they don’t offer comparisons to private-sector hospitals, said the article.

The VA’s health system has been under intense scrutiny since reports of months-long wait times for patients surfaced in 2014.

To read the FierceHealthcare article on this, please hit this link.