Stuck On Hold Act
Summary
What This Bill Does
The Stuck On Hold Act is a VA customer-service bill. Within one year after enactment, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs must implement, for each covered VA customer service telephone line, an automated system that tells callers the anticipated wait time and automatically offers a callback when the anticipated wait exceeds 10 minutes. The Secretary must also issue whatever guidance is necessary to reduce the average wait time for callers to covered lines to no more than 10 minutes. Covered lines are VA customer service telephone lines, but the definition excludes the toll-free veterans hotline under 38 U.S.C. 1720F(h) and emergency department phone lines at VA health care facilities. The bill focuses on routine customer service lines, not crisis or emergency lines.
Who Benefits and How
Veterans calling VA customer service lines benefit because they receive wait-time information and callback offers instead of remaining indefinitely on hold. Veterans' family members and caregivers benefit when they call covered VA customer service lines on a veteran's behalf. VA customer service operations benefit if callback systems and wait-time guidance smooth call queues and reduce abandoned calls.
Who Bears the Burden and How
The Secretary of Veterans Affairs must implement automated wait-time and callback systems within one year. VA call center administrators must configure covered lines, estimate wait times, offer callbacks above the 10-minute threshold, and track average wait times. VA information technology staff must integrate phone systems, callback workflows, and performance reporting. Federal taxpayers bear implementation and maintenance costs for the automated systems.
Key Provisions
- Requires automated anticipated-wait-time notices for covered VA customer service telephone lines.
- Requires automatic callback offers when anticipated wait time exceeds 10 minutes.
- Directs VA guidance to reduce average covered-line wait time to no more than 10 minutes.
- Excludes the veterans crisis hotline and VA emergency department phone lines from the covered-line definition.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Requires VA to add automated wait-time information and callback offers to each covered VA customer service telephone line within one year, offer callbacks when anticipated waits exceed 10 minutes, and issue guidance to reduce average covered-line wait times to 10 minutes or less while excluding the veterans crisis hotline and VA emergency department lines.
Key Policy Areas
Veterans Services, Customer Service, VA
Primary Purpose
Requires VA to add automated wait-time information and callback offers to each covered VA customer service telephone line within one year, offer callbacks when anticipated waits exceed 10 minutes, and issue guidance to reduce average covered-line wait times to 10 minutes or less while excluding the veterans crisis hotline and VA emergency department lines.
Policy Domains
Substantive provisions
Identified Gains
- Veterans calling VA customer service
- Veterans' family members
- Veteran caregivers
- VA customer service operations
Identified Costs
- Secretary of Veterans Affairs
- VA call center administrators
- VA information technology staff
- Federal taxpayers
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeReferred to the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity.
Mr. Calvert (for himself, Mr. Van Orden, Mr. Barrett, Mr. …
Referred to the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
Introduced in House
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology