To require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish and implement a plan to improve the process for scheduling appointments for health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes.
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
Passed SenateMs. Hassan (for herself and Mr. Boozman) introduced the following …
Ms. Hassan (for herself, Mr. Boozman, Mr. Moran, and Mr. …
Passed Senate (inferred from es version)
Summary
What This Bill Does
This bill requires the VA Secretary to submit a plan within one year to improve health care appointment scheduling for veterans. The plan must address self-service online scheduling allowing patients to view, book, cancel, and reschedule appointments for all types of care (primary, mental health, specialty). It must also provide telephonic scheduling assistance and improve employee-facing IT tools. The plan must be fully implemented within two years of submission, with progress reports required annually.
Who Benefits and How
- Veterans seeking VA healthcare benefit from improved appointment scheduling including online self-service options and better phone support.
- VA scheduling employees benefit from improved IT tools, training, and processes to do their jobs more effectively.
- VA healthcare facilities benefit from more efficient scheduling reducing no-shows and improving resource utilization.
- Health IT contractors may benefit from contracts to develop or improve scheduling platforms.
- Congress gains visibility through required implementation plan and progress reports.
Who Bears the Burden and How
- VA must develop and implement the comprehensive scheduling improvement plan within tight timelines.
- Veterans Health Administration must coordinate with Office of Information Technology on development.
- VA IT systems must integrate with Electronic Health Record Modernization Program.
- Federal taxpayers bear costs of IT development and implementation (costs reported to Congress).
Key Provisions
- Submit scheduling improvement plan to Congress within 1 year
- Fully implement plan within 2 years of submission
- Must enable online self-service scheduling for all care types
- Must provide referral request capability for specialty care
- Must create telephonic scheduling assistance process
- Must coordinate with EHR Modernization Program
- Progress reports required at 1 and 2 years after plan submission
- Reports must include costs, deployment schedule, metrics, and challenges
- Cannot preclude veterans from using traditional non-online scheduling
Evidence Chain:
This summary is derived from the structured analysis below. See "Detailed Analysis" for per-title beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
Primary Purpose
Requires VA to develop and implement a plan to improve health care appointment scheduling, including self-service online scheduling, telephonic scheduling assistance, and integration with the Electronic Health Record Modernization Program.
Policy Domains
Legislative Strategy
"Mandate VA scheduling improvements with clear timelines and Congressional reporting to address persistent veteran access issues"
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "oit"
- → Office of Information and Technology
- "vha"
- → Veterans Health Administration
- "the_secretary"
- → Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
With respect to an appointment for health care, means that the appointment booking is completed, rather than simply requested
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