Two lawmakers introduced legislation on Thursday designed to expand veterans’ access to non-Veterans Affairs medical providers.
Sens. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) introduced the bills that would effectively codify existing guidelines for when veterans can see non-VA doctors. Vets currently are permitted to seek non-VA doctors if they face long wait times or VA locations too far away, though critics have accused the VA of skirting their own rules about informing patients about this right.
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“Veterans deserve access to timely, high-quality care and a greater ability to choose when, where and how to use the health care benefits that they earned through their service and sacrifice,” Moran, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said in a statement. “Despite the steps Congress has taken to increase access to care for veterans in VA and in the community, I continue to hear from far too many veterans in Kansas and across the country who are not being given the choices they are owed from VA.”
“This legislation will help make certain VA fulfills its mission to care for veterans by safeguarding care in the community, expanding access to care for veterans with mental health and substance use disorders, empowering veterans with the information they need to make the health care decisions that best serve them and requiring VA to improve quality of care,” he added.
Congress passed the Mission Act in 2018, which overhauled the VA’s private-sector healthcare for veterans, which determined eligibility for community care, or the ability to see non-VA medical providers, whether they face drive times of at least 30 minutes to a primary or mental health appointment or an hour for specialty care, or if they have to wait 20 or more days to be seen for primary care or 28 days for specialist care.
Moran and Sinema’s bill would put those standards into law and would bar the VA from factoring in telehealth appointment availability when deciding whether a veteran would be allowed to seek a non-VA provider.
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Their bill would also change a rule regarding how that wait time is factored. Currently, the VA can restart that 20- or 28-day time frame when an appointment is canceled, though the new legislation would mandate the date they originally requested the appointment be used for this calculation.
“The VA has continued to ignore the intent of Congress by undermining the Veterans Community Care Program since its creation in 2019,” Russ Duerstine, Concerned Veterans of America’s executive director, told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “By manipulating wait times, dissuading veterans from using their benefits outside the VA, and overruling doctors’ recommendations, VA administrators have looked out for their bureaucratic interests at the expense of millions of veterans’ wellbeing.”
