HR3643-119

What This Bill Does

The VA Data Transparency and Trust Act turns VA annual reporting into a detailed, time-limited transparency program. For five years, VA must report to the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees on VHA hospital care, medical services, and nursing home care. The required VHA data includes total veterans served, chronic conditions such as traumatic brain injury, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, age, sex, service period and Reserve service, Post-9/11 Global Operations veterans, mental health conditions including traumatic brain injury and suicidal ideation, polytrauma, spinal cord injury, service-connected disabilities and costs, homelessness, long-term care, enrollment by priority group, wait between separation and enrollment or first care, visits, inpatient and outpatient care, prescriptions by setting and average term, diagnostic services by service-connected status and body system, VHA reliance, hospital-acquired infections, satisfaction at VA and non-VA facilities, care under the VA MISSION Act, PACT Act, CHAMPVA, and community care, copayment collections, Medical Care Collections Fund data, physician and medical professional staffing, salaries, patient loads, facility construction, maintenance, occupancy, visits, capital spending over $20,000, priority group cost and use, and the share of care delivered in VA versus non-VA facilities. VA must also build a data-sharing system for eligible researchers with aggregated, anonymized health data modeled on the CMS Qualified Entity Program, including enrollment, priority group, disability rating, VA visit, diagnostic-code, outpatient, inpatient, and non-VA insurance-claim data. A parallel VBA report section requires added benefits data for five years, including numbers of veterans receiving benefits by age, income, service period, Reserve service, benefit types, disability-rating demographics, rating changes, average compensation including dependents, special monthly compensation, and total unemployability, and reevaluation data.

Who Benefits and How

Congressional veterans committees benefit from a far more complete annual oversight record on VA care, costs, staffing, benefits, and outcomes. Veterans health researchers benefit from access to aggregated and anonymized VA health data through a formal data-sharing system. Veterans using VHA care benefit if better reporting exposes gaps in access, quality, long-term care, prescriptions, or community care. Veterans with service-connected disabilities benefit from clearer reporting on costs, ratings, compensation, and reevaluations. Homeless veterans and Post-9/11 veterans benefit because the report must break out their health status, locations, conditions, and care use.

Who Bears the Burden and How

VA data offices must collect, anonymize, validate, and publish much broader VHA and VBA data for five years. VHA facility administrators must provide facility age, renovation, maintenance, occupancy, staffing, quality, prescription, and visit data. VBA reporting staff must compile benefits, disability rating, compensation, and reevaluation data. VA privacy and cybersecurity staff must protect veterans' data in the researcher sharing system. Researchers must meet VA data security and data protection criteria before receiving access.

Key Provisions

• Requires five years of expanded VHA annual reports to congressional veterans committees.
• Requires detailed data on veterans served, chronic conditions, priority groups, homelessness, long-term care, prescriptions, diagnostics, staffing, quality, and costs.
• Creates a data-sharing system for eligible researchers using aggregated and anonymized VA health data.
• Requires five years of expanded VBA Annual Benefits Report data on benefits, disability ratings, compensation, and reevaluations.
• Requires VA to model the data-sharing system on the CMS Qualified Entity Program where applicable.