Whistleblower: VA officials under investigation got bonuses

By Sarah Westwood, Sarah Westwood

Published December 20, 2015

A former physician at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital outside Chicago says she faced intense retaliation after alerting VA management to dangerous delays in patient care.

Dr. Lisa Nee, who worked as a cardiologist at the troubled Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital in Illinois until 2013, shares a similar story with hundreds of other VA whistleblowers who have seen their careers at the agency crumble after trying to report wrongdoing to management.

But after leaving the VA in frustration, Nee filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the hospital's financial records and made a startling discovery: everyone in her department, including doctors who had allegedly committed billing fraud and abused patients, had received bonuses except for her.

That included physicians who, according to Nee, performed unnecessary bypass surgeries on veterans because their bonuses were tied to "productivity" numbers that could be boosted by scheduling extra procedures.

"Everybody at Hines is still there who committed these acts," Nee told the Washington Examiner. "Almost every single person has received a promotion."