AI-generated illustration. VA offices were given less than 11 hours to review 1,049 contracts in February 2025.
The Gist
In February 2025, VA offices got less than 11 hours to review 1,049 contracts. Four days later, senior advisers and DOGE ordered terminations “regardless of the incomplete reviews.” One of the contracts cut that day audited the invoices of the companies that do veterans’ disability exams. It wasn’t reinstated for five months. VA then told Congress it had cut $120.9 billion in contracts. The real total, across every list, was about $1.1 billion. The Inspector General’s report on all of it, released September 22, makes no recommendations. VA says the cuts had “no negative impact whatsoever.” Nobody measured.
Why this matters to veterans
The contract that audited the bills for your C&P exams was cut for five months, and nobody has said who checked those bills in the meantime. VA says the cuts cost you nothing, but its watchdog never looked. And of the $900 million VA promised to put back into your care, the paper trail runs out at a fraction of that.
On Friday, February 21, 2025, an order went out to VA’s contracting chiefs, administrations, and staff offices.
Review 1,049 contract actions. Justify the ones you want to keep. Get sign-off from a deputy under secretary and from the Secretary’s senior advisers. Send it all back.
They had less than 11 hours.
Do the math. That’s one contract every 38 seconds, approvals included, if nobody stopped to eat.
Some offices didn’t finish. It didn’t matter. According to the director of VA’s Category Management Support Office, senior advisers and representatives of the Department of Government Efficiency directed staff to terminate the contracts on February 25, “regardless of the incomplete reviews.”
That line is in the VA Inspector General’s report, released September 22, 2026. So is everything else in this piece that isn’t linked somewhere else.
Eleven hours, then the order
The sequence, from the OIG’s own timeline and VA’s own words:
February 6, 2025. VA’s category management office builds its first list of professional services and consulting contracts to cut, at the request of GSA and DOGE.
February 11. Secretary Doug Collins sets up a team to find cost savings, including a review of every VA contract. Per the OIG, his memo points them at contracts for mentors, consultants, coaches, and advisers, and at anything an average person would call wasteful. He gives them two weeks to produce a plan.
February 13. Collins posts a video on VA News. DOGE is reviewing contracts, he says. “I’m happy to partner with them to find things we need to get rid of so we can put the money where it belongs… back with our Veterans.”
February 21. The 1,049-contract list goes out. Less than 11 hours.
February 25. Offices are directed to terminate a revised list of 874 contract actions by end of day. The same day, the Veterans Health Administration reports that 163 of those 874 are mission critical.
February 26. All terminations paused for further review.
March 3. Terminate a revised list of 585.
Then 512. Then 501. Then 452. Between February and June, OALC and the Secretary’s senior advisers sent VA contracting officials at least 47 separate orders to justify, terminate, pause, or reinstate contracts. VHA contracting staff told the OIG they were getting termination instructions from OALC, the senior advisers, and DOGE, all at once. The OIG’s words: “confusion and frustration.” VA ended up assigning people full time just to track the lists.
That’s the process VA’s press secretary, Quinn Slaven, called “methodical and careful” this week.
To be fair to VA, and the OIG is: the report found that contracting officers “generally complied” with federal acquisition rules when they terminated contracts, and that the review procedures VA set up “reduced the risk of terminating critical services.”
Reduced. Not eliminated. And by the account of VA’s own contracting office, those procedures were overridden four days in.
The contract that checked the exam bills
Most of what got cut was consulting. The OIG counts 375 of the 435 terminated contracts, 86 percent, as consulting services: administrative management, program management, strategic communications.
The OIG picked one example to show what “terminated then reinstated” looked like. It didn’t pick a communications contract.
On February 25, 2025, a VA contracting officer terminated a contract providing “financial audit services of invoices from medical disability exam contractors.” It was reinstated August 1.
The OIG doesn’t name the contractor. The federal contract record does. Award 36C10X24F0047, to Cathexis, LLC, described as “Financial Audit for MDE.” Modification P00001, dated February 25, 2025: terminate for convenience. Modification P00002, dated August 1, 2025: exercise an option, $6.03 million. VA has obligated about $17.3 million on it since 2024.
Those medical disability exams are the C&P exams. If you’ve filed a claim in the last few years, a contractor may well have examined you instead of a VA doctor. In fiscal 2024, contractors did more than 3 million of them, at a cost of more than $5 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office.
That same GAO report found VA’s Medical Disability Examination Office paid contractors over $2 million in incorrect incentive payments in a single quarter of fiscal 2024, because the office had no written procedure to check the math.
So in February 2025, with a documented problem checking the bills on a $5 billion program, VA cut the contract that audited the bills. For five months and a week.
What happened to exam invoice review between February 25 and August 1? I don’t know. The termination was recorded as “complete or partial,” so some of the work may have continued. The OIG didn’t say, and it didn’t ask.
$120.9 billion, as told to Congress
On May 16, 2025, VA sent Congress a list of terminated contracts. Four hundred forty-six contract actions. Total value: about $120.9 billion.
The OIG went through it.
VA had actually terminated 357 of the 446. Eleven had been terminated and reinstated. Seventy-eight had never been terminated at all. Sixteen were listed at a billion dollars or more. None of them was worth more than $150 million. One listed at more than $21 billion was worth just over $74 million.
The cause, per a VA official: a dashboard VA built to track the cuts miscalculated the values.
For scale: the OIG’s total for everything VA actually terminated, across every list it reviewed, is about $1.1 billion.
On July 3, VA sent Congress a second list. The cover email said VA had terminated or was terminating 1,667 contracts. The list had 1,664. VA had terminated 366 of them, and later reinstated 17.
The rest is where it gets ugly. The July list counted 974 supply orders that were never terminated. Prosthetics. Surgical implants. Wheelchair ramps. It counted 151 health care orders that were never terminated, including nursing home services.
Why were those on a list of cuts? A VA official told the OIG that DOGE representatives “wanted to claim credit for any contracts that ended, including those that simply reached the end of their performance period.”
A wheelchair ramp gets installed. The contract ends because the ramp is done. It goes to Congress on a list of cuts.
VA’s acquisition office told the OIG that the people who put the lists together, VA senior advisers and DOGE representatives among them, “were unfamiliar with contracting and acquisition terminology.”
By the account of VA’s own contracting office, senior advisers and DOGE representatives are also who ordered the February terminations.
VA sent Congress a corrected list on April 13, 2026. The OIG didn’t check it. It isn’t posted on either Veterans’ Affairs Committee website.
“Back with our Veterans”
VA’s line this week, to Military Times: “The IG report simply confirms what we’ve said from the beginning: VA terminated hundreds of wasteful and duplicative contracts, saving the department more than $1 billion.” And to Government Executive: “the department is reinvesting these massive savings to make landmark improvements to VA care and benefits.”
The OIG defines that $1.1 billion as total contract value, “the full cost of everything agreed upon for the entire project or service period, but it does not reflect how much of the contract cost has been paid or any settlement costs.”
That’s a ceiling. It’s not savings.
Part of it may already have been paid out before the terminations. The OIG didn’t calculate how much. And some money went back out the door. As of the OIG’s review, VA had settled 267 of the 435 terminations. Of those, 117 cost money: about $10.6 million so far. Contractors get up to a year to file settlement claims, so that number can still grow.
Then there are the 100 contract actions VA terminated and later brought back. Their combined contract value is also about $1.1 billion. The same size as everything that stayed cut.
Each reinstatement meant a contracting officer undoing a termination. Blumenthal wants to know what all of that cost. So do I.
So where is the money Collins promised to put “back with our Veterans”?
VA put a number on it early. In March 2025, it announced it was canceling 585 contracts worth about $1.8 billion. “After accounting for the money already spent on the contracts, the cancellations will enable VA to redirect about $900 million back toward health care, benefits and services for VA beneficiaries.”
The OIG checked that March list. Of its 562 unique contract actions, VA actually terminated 362. Another 49 were terminated and brought back. The other 151 were never terminated at all.
The same press release said the cuts “were identified through a deliberative, multi-level review that involved the career subject-matter expert employees responsible for the contracts.” That describes the March round. It doesn’t describe February 25.
Then came the one transfer on record. On April 24, 2025, VA notified Congress it would move $343 million from canceled contracts to community care, Military.com reported. Collins confirmed it at a House Appropriations hearing on May 15. Lawmakers there said the notice didn’t say which contracts the money came from or which accounts it went to.
Appropriators from both parties said VA needed their approval to move the money, not just a heads-up. “A two-page notification with one briefing does not give us any real information on what exactly you’ll be doing with these funds,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the subcommittee’s ranking member, told Collins. The Republican chairman, Rep. John Carter, backed her: “I’ve been on this committee 20 years. It’s been done that way 20 years, and we’re not going to change it now.”
So I went through VA’s own budget books for fiscal 2026 and 2027, a few thousand pages. I couldn’t find the $343 million transfer in either year. Every dollar I found tied to canceled contracts:
Veterans Benefits Administration: “contract cancellations generated $76 million in savings” in 2026, “$27 million from direct cancellations and $49 million from reimbursed contracts.” (FY 2027 budget, Volume 3, p. 48)
Board of Veterans’ Appeals: $9.9 million moved to VA health care’s Medical Services account in fiscal 2025, “due to contract savings and reductions in personnel costs.” (Same volume, p. 246)
Office of Management: “$1.1 million savings from cancelled contracts.” (FY 2026 budget, Volume 3, p. 275)
That’s about $87 million, from three offices. VBA’s $76 million is logged as savings, with no destination. The Board’s $9.9 million is the only money the books show moving to veterans’ care, and part of it came from personnel cuts.
Collins named one more destination, out loud. At a House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing on May 15, 2025, the same day as the appropriations hearing, Rep. Nancy Mace asked what VA had saved by canceling DEI-related contracts. Collins: “There were a number of contracts and the total value we saw on those contracts was about $6.1 million.” Where did it go? “As we said, it went back toward allocation toward community care and prosthetics.” That $6.1 million doesn’t appear in either year’s budget books.
Add it up. VA promised about $900 million, figured from a list it only partly carried out. It told appropriators about $343 million, in a two-page notice. Its budget books show about $87 million.
Nothing reads like a ledger. The senators who asked for this review asked the same question, in writing, in June 2025. The OIG didn’t answer it. At a Senate hearing that same month, the subcommittee’s ranking member, Sen. Jon Ossoff, told Collins that contract cancellations were among the “core concerns where we need more transparency.”
Eight questions. Two answers.
On June 13, 2025, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the ranking member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and Sen. Angus King wrote to the OIG. They asked for eight things. Among them:
The impact of the cancellations on veterans’ health care and benefits
The impact on patient safety, IT security, research, and construction
How AI and algorithms were used, including by DOGE’s Sahil Lavingia
Whether career VA experts were involved in the decisions
Whether anyone had a plan to replace services before canceling them
Where the money from canceled contracts went
The OIG narrowed the review to two questions: how VA picked contracts, and whether VA’s numbers were accurate.
That’s it.
No finding on impact to veterans. None on patient safety. None on contingency plans. None on where the money went. On AI, one sentence: the first list, on February 6, was built from standard industry codes, “not a Department of Government Efficiency artificial intelligence program.”
The report’s answer on VA’s corrected numbers is that it didn’t review them. It says VA kept terminating contracts beyond what the OIG reviewed. “Therefore,” the report says, “the OIG is not making any recommendations.” It also notes VA may have terminated contracts that were never on the four lists it examined.
VA’s Office of Procurement read the draft and concurred “without comment.”
One more thing, because you’ll see it elsewhere. Inspector General Cheryl Mason was a senior adviser to Secretary Collins before she took the job. She recused herself from this review. The report was signed by the Assistant Inspector General for Audits and Evaluations, Larry Reinkemeyer. The recusal was the right call. It doesn’t change what the report left out.
So when VA says the cuts had “no negative impact whatsoever on VA care and benefits,” understand what’s backing that sentence.
Nothing in this report. Nobody measured.
The algorithm came later
You may remember the AI story. In June 2025, ProPublica reported that a DOGE engineer, Sahil Lavingia, had built a tool to flag VA contracts as “MUNCHABLE.” It read only the first 2,500 words or so of each contract. It concluded that more than a thousand contracts were each worth $34 million, when some were worth $35,000. Among the canceled contracts ProPublica identified was one “to maintain a gene sequencing device used to develop better cancer treatments.” Lavingia told ProPublica the errors were later corrected by VA staff.
The OIG’s one sentence on AI doesn’t contradict that. It says the February 6 list wasn’t made by an AI program.
Per ProPublica, Lavingia started at VA on March 17, 2025, and wrote the tool the following day.
The February 21 deadline, the February 25 order, the “regardless of the incomplete reviews,” all of it came before the tool existed. People did that. With spreadsheets and an 11-hour clock.
What the tool did to the lists that came after, the May list with its $120.9 billion, the July list with its wheelchair ramps, the OIG didn’t examine. The senators asked. It’s still an open question.
Still open
The April 13, 2026 list. VA’s corrected count of what it terminated, descoped, or let lapse. Congress has it. You don’t. When I get it, you will.
Cathexis, 36C10X24F0047. What happened to exam invoice audits between February 25 and August 1, 2025.
Settlement costs. $10.6 million on 117 settlements so far, with contractors still inside their one-year window when the OIG finished. That number will move.
Blumenthal’s question. He told Military Times that Secretary Collins “owes us answers on how VA will replace lost services and how much this fiasco has cost taxpayers in arbitration, settlements, and reinstatements.” Watch whether anyone in the majority asks it too.
Eleven hours to review 1,049 contracts. Nineteen months later, the watchdog’s answer: no recommendations.
Nobody has checked on the veterans yet.
Make the Call
Two minutes. Congressional offices log every call by issue. Enough calls on one issue in one week and staff brief the member.
Who to call:
Your own Representative and Senators. Find yours here.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), Chairman, Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee: (202) 224-6521
Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL), Chairman, House Veterans’ Affairs Committee: (202) 225-5661
Capitol Switchboard, connects to any member: (202) 224-3121
Script 1: If you’re a veteran or military family member
“Hi, my name is [NAME], and I’m a [veteran / military family member] in [STATE]. I’m calling about the VA Inspector General’s September 22 report on contract terminations.
The report found VA staff were told to terminate contracts before their reviews were finished, and that VA sent Congress a list of cuts valued at $120.9 billion. The Inspector General found everything VA actually terminated came to about $1.1 billion. The report never looked at whether the cuts hurt veterans.
I’m asking [MEMBER NAME] to request VA’s corrected April 2026 list of terminated contracts, make it public, and ask VA to show where the money went.
Thank you.”
Script 2: If you’re a concerned citizen
“Hi, my name is [NAME], and I’m a constituent in [STATE]. The VA Inspector General just reported that VA cut hundreds of contracts on an 11-hour review clock and sent Congress a $120.9 billion list when the real total of cuts was about $1.1 billion. The report made no recommendations.
I’d like [MEMBER NAME] to ask for a full public accounting: what was cut, what it cost to cut it, and what happened to the money.
Thank you for your time.”
Call first. Follow up with a personal email. A letter to your local paper counts more than both.
About This Publication
Tbird’s Quiet Fight is independent investigative journalism on VA policy, veteran benefits, and government accountability, published by the founder of HadIt.com, a veteran-run VA claims community since 1997.
Tips and sources: ipersist@tbirdsquietfight.com. If you worked on these contract reviews, at VA or at a contractor, I want to hear from you.
I use AI as a research and editing assistant, the same way I’d use a good reference book or a sharp editor. Every word published here is reviewed, verified, and approved by me. The perspective, accuracy, and editorial decisions are mine.
Last verified: September 26, 2026
Theresa “Tbird” Aldrich, Navy veteran (VAQ-34, 1983-1990), Investigative Journalist, TbirdsQuietFight.com, Founder of HadIt.com | Advisory Board Member, Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute (VHPI).
Sources
VA Office of Inspector General, Review of Contracts Terminated for Convenience, Review 25-03033-230 (Sept. 22, 2026) (PDF)
USAspending.gov, Award 36C10X24F0047, Cathexis, LLC, “Financial Audit for MDE,” transaction history, modifications P00001 (Feb. 25, 2025) and P00002 (Aug. 1, 2025)
GAO-25-107483, VA Disability Benefits: Additional Oversight and Information Could Improve Quality of Contracted Exams for Veterans (Aug. 2025)
VA News, “VA Secretary Doug Collins addresses Veterans’ benefits in new video” (Feb. 13, 2025)
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2026 (June 17, 2025), govinfo CHRG-119shrg60276
House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Budget Request for Fiscal Years 2026 and 2027 Advance Appropriations, Serial No. 119-21 (May 15, 2025)
VA FY 2027 Budget Submission, Volume 3, pp. 48, 246