Objective
Our objective was to determine whether the United States Marine Corps Wounded Warrior Battalion–East (WWBn-E) officials promoted active participation of the recovering Service members when developing their Comprehensive Recovery Plans (CRPs) as agreed to in Recommendation C.1 of DoD OIG Report No. DODIG-2012-067 and whether these actions corrected the identified issues.
Finding
Wounded Warrior Regiment (WWR) officials did not fully implement the corrective actions as agreed to in Recommendation C.1 of DoD OIG Report No. DODIG-2012-067. Although the WWR officials improved the recovery care coordinator (RCC) program and developed CRPs, the revised training did not provide RCCs with the tools needed to ensure that recovering Marines had ownership of their plans and they had an ineffective quality assurance program. Specifically, we found that of the 40 selected CRPs:
- 1 did not include the recovering Marine in the development of the goals;
- 12 did not involve, or offer to involve, the recovering Marine’s family or designated caregiver in the development of the plan;
- 14 did not establish all medical and long-term goals for the recovering Marine;
- 24 did not involve the recovering Marine in the development of action steps;
- 38 did not include the recovering Marine’s entire recovery team in the development of the plan; and
- 40 were not signed by the RCC, the recovering Marine, and their family or designated caregiver.
This occurred because WWR officials did not clearly define roles and responsibilities to prepare CRPs, follow DoD Instruction 1300.24, or finalize the draft WWR Order P3100.1A. Additionally, the contracting officer and contracting officer’s representative did not conduct contract surveillance for the WWR RCC contract as required by Federal and Defense Acquisition Regulations. As a result, recovering Marines continue to be at risk of not fulfilling their transition goals because they may not have had a complete CRP that focused on all relevant transitional goals and action steps.
Recommendations
We recommend that the Commanding Officer, WWR update the RCC training program as well as revise and finalize the WWR Order P3100.1A to comply with all DoD and Marine Corps policies and procedures. Additionally, we recommend the Director, Marine Corps Regional Contracting Office–National Capital Region verify that the WWR contracting officer and their representative performed and documented contract surveillance in accordance with the Federal and Defense Acquisition Regulations.
Management Comments and Our Response
The Office of the Director, Marine Corps Staff comments addressed all specifics of the recommendations, and no further comments are required.