HR1107-119

What This Bill Does

H.R.1107 would add 38 USC 1730D to authorize covered Department of Veterans Affairs professionals to use telemedicine to deliver, distribute or dispense a controlled substance that is a prescription drug to patients eligible for chapter17 medical treatment, regardless of whether that particular professional has conducted an in-person examination. The clinician must have an active, current, full and unrestricted State credential authorizing the drug's basic class, act in the usual course of professional practice, and have a legitimate medical purpose. This is permission to provide care, not a requirement that a clinician issue a prescription or that a pharmacy fill one.

Covered professionals include specified VA employees, explicitly excluding VA contractors, who meet VA authorization, quality and qualification requirements, and certain section7405 health-professions trainees under covered-clinician supervision. The trainee definition does not erase the prescribing-credential condition in subsection(a). The proposal directs the VA Secretary to establish regulatory guidelines and a process, with no specific implementation deadline or appropriation. The bill remains pending: the latest official action checked September22,2026 was Senate Veterans' Affairs referral on September16,2025.

Who Benefits and How

Eligible VA patients, especially rural veterans and veterans with mobility limitations, could benefit from a durable statutory basis for remote controlled-medication care and fewer unnecessary trips to see the prescribing clinician. Covered VA clinicians gain express title38 authorization, but not freedom from professional standards or federal drug-law requirements. The text does not extend its new authorization to every private telehealth practice or all VA community-care contractors.

This is not first-time legal access to such prescribing in2026. DEA and HHS already extended broader temporary telemedicine flexibilities through December31,2026, and a separate VA continuity-of-care rule took effect December31,2025. That rule includes qualifying VA employees or contractors and generally relies on an earlier in-person evaluation by another qualifying VA practitioner. The bill's own authorization has no stated sunset, but existing access and the remaining federal requirements limit any claim of immediate new access.

Who Bears the Burden and How

VA must develop the required regulations and administer the covered-clinician rules. Clinicians still must satisfy licensing, clinical-purpose and Controlled Substances Act duties. The bill both makes the authorization subject to federal controlled-substance requirements and explicitly preserves every covered professional's obligations under that Act. It therefore should not be described as an unconditional permanent repeal of the Ryan Haight Act, DEA registration, or every in-person-examination requirement. The interaction with federal telemedicine exceptions remains important after the temporary2026 flexibility expires.

Neither pharmaceutical manufacturers nor telehealth vendors receive a named award, payment increase, or guaranteed sales volume. Contractors are outside this new statutory definition, but the bill does not repeal their separate existing prescribing authorities. It changes neither chapter17 patient eligibility nor drug copayments, and supplies no entitlement to a particular medication.

Key Provisions

• Authorizes covered VA professionals to provide controlled prescription drugs remotely without a personal in-person examination, subject to federal drug-law requirements.
• Requires an unrestricted credential authorizing the controlled-substance class, usual professional practice and a legitimate medical purpose.
• Defines eligible VA employees and supervised section7405 trainees while excluding contractors from the new authorization.
• Requires VA regulatory guidelines and a process without a specified deadline or new appropriation.
• Preserves all Controlled Substances Act obligations and does not create the first available telemedicine prescribing route in2026.