II
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION S. 607
To require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish an integrated project
team to improve the process for scheduling appointments for health
care from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
FEBRUARY18, 2025
Ms. H
ASSAN(for herself and Mr. BOOZMAN) introduced the following bill;
which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
A BILL
To require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish
an integrated project team to improve the process for
scheduling appointments for health care from the De-
partment of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Improving Veteran Ac-4
cess to Care Act’’. 5
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SEC. 2. ESTABLISHMENT OF INTEGRATED PROJECT TEAM 1
OF DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS TO 2
IMPROVE HEALTH CARE APPOINTMENT 3
SCHEDULING. 4
(a) I
NGENERAL.—The Secretary of Veterans Af-5
fairs, through the Veterans Health Administration and the 6
Office of Information and Technology of the Department 7
of Veterans Affairs, or any successor offices or administra-8
tions of similar function, shall establish an integrated 9
project team to improve the process for scheduling ap-10
pointments for health care from the Department of Vet-11
erans Affairs. 12
(b) P
URPOSE.—The purpose of this section is to en-13
sure the Department of Veterans Affairs delivers to pa-14
tients and employees of the Department in a timely man-15
ner the scheduling capabilities developed by the integrated 16
project team established under subsection (a) to imme-17
diately improve delivery of care, access to care, customer 18
experience and service, and efficiency with respect to the 19
delivery of care. 20
(c) O
BJECTIVES.—The objectives of the integrated 21
project team established under subsection (a) are the fol-22
lowing: 23
(1) To develop or continue the development of 24
a scheduling system that enables both personnel and 25
patients of the Department of Veterans Affairs to 26
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•S 607 IS
view available appointments for all care furnished by 1
the Department, including— 2
(A) available appointments for all pro-3
viders of the Department; 4
(B) available appointments at all clinics, 5
hospitals, and other health care facilities of the 6
Department; and 7
(C) available appointments at all offices 8
providing patient care within the health care 9
system of the Department, including primary 10
care and all forms of specialty care. 11
(2) To develop or continue the development of 12
a self-service scheduling platform, available for use 13
by all patients of the Department, which shall— 14
(A) enable such patients to view available 15
appointments and fully schedule appointments 16
for all care furnished by the Department, in-17
cluding— 18
(i) appointments for all providers of 19
the Department; 20
(ii) appointments at all clinics, hos-21
pitals, and other health care facilities of 22
the Department; and 23
(iii) appointments at all offices pro-24
viding patient care within the health care 25
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•S 607 IS
system of the Department, including pri-1
mary care and all forms of specialty care; 2
(B) if a referral is required for an appoint-3
ment, provide a method for the patient to re-4
quest a referral and subsequently book an ap-5
pointment if the referral is approved; and 6
(C) provide such patients with the ability 7
to cancel or reschedule appointments. 8
(3) To create a process through which all pa-9
tients of the Department can telephonically speak 10
with a scheduler who can assist the patient to deter-11
mine appointment availability and can fully schedule 12
appointments on behalf of the patient for all care 13
furnished by the Department, including— 14
(A) appointments for all providers of the 15
Department; 16
(B) appointments at all clinics, hospitals, 17
and other health care facilities of the Depart-18
ment; and 19
(C) appointments at all offices providing 20
patient care within the health care system of 21
the Department, including primary care and all 22
forms of specialty care. 23
(4) To carry out such other functions, over-24
sight, metric development and tracking, change man-25
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•S 607 IS
agement, cross-Department coordination, and other 1
related matters as the Secretary determines appro-2
priate as it relates to scheduling tools, functions, 3
and operations with respect to health care appoint-4
ments furnished by the Department. 5
(d) C
OORDINATION WITHELECTRONICHEALTH 6
R
ECORDMODERNIZATIONPROGRAM.— 7
(1) I
N GENERAL.—The integrated project team 8
established under subsection (a) shall carry out the 9
objectives under subsection (c) in consultation and 10
coordination with the deployment schedule and capa-11
bilities of the Electronic Health Record Moderniza-12
tion Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs 13
to ensure a smooth transition to using the tools and 14
features, where relevant and appropriate, that may 15
be created pursuant to this section, along with the 16
features in the Electronic Health Record Moderniza-17
tion Program. 18
(2) R
ULE OF CONSTRUCTION .—Nothing in this 19
subsection shall be construed to require the inte-20
grated project team established under subsection (a), 21
the Veterans Health Administration, or the Office of 22
Information and Technology of the Department to 23
defer or delay the deployment of scheduling capabili-24
ties required by this section because of future poten-25
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•S 607 IS
tial planned capabilities of the Electronic Health 1
Record Modernization Program. 2
(e) D
EADLINES.— 3
(1) E
STABLISHMENT.—Not later than 180 days 4
after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Sec-5
retary of Veterans Affairs, through the Veterans 6
Health Administration and the Office of Information 7
and Technology of the Department of Veterans Af-8
fairs, or any successor office, shall fully establish the 9
integrated project team under subsection (a). 10
(2) C
OMPLETION OF OBJECTIVES .—Not later 11
than one year after the date of the enactment of this 12
Act, the integrated project team established under 13
subsection (a) shall complete the objectives under 14
subsection (c). 15
(f) R
EPORT ONOBJECTIVES.—If the Secretary of 16
Veterans Affairs determines that an objective under sub-17
section (c), or any feature or service in connection with 18
that objective, cannot be implemented or otherwise incor-19
porated into a final product, the Secretary shall, within 20
45 days of that determination, submit to the appropriate 21
committees of Congress a report— 22
(1) detailing that objective, feature, or service 23
and providing an explanation as to why that objec-24
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tive, feature, or service cannot be implemented or in-1
corporated, as the case may be; and 2
(2) setting forth a plan for implementing this 3
section without that objective, feature, or service. 4
(g) I
MPLEMENTATION REPORTS.—Not later than 5
each of one year and two years after the date of the enact-6
ment of this Act, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall 7
submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report 8
on the progress of the Secretary in fulfilling the require-9
ments of this section, including— 10
(1) costs incurred to implement such require-11
ments as of the date of the report; 12
(2) the expected costs to complete implementa-13
tion of such requirements (including costs for man-14
agement and technology); 15
(3) the schedule for deployment of any capabili-16
ties developed by the integrated project team estab-17
lished under subsection (a); and 18
(4) goals and metrics achieved, challenges, and 19
lessons learned. 20
(h) R
ULE OFCONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this sec-21
tion shall be construed to preclude or impede the ability 22
of a veteran to contact or schedule an appointment directly 23
with a facility or provider through a non-online scheduling 24
process, should the veteran choose to do so. 25
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(i) DEFINITIONS.—In this section: 1
(1) A
PPROPRIATE COMMITTEES OF CON -2
GRESS.—The term ‘‘appropriate committees of Con-3
gress’’ means the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs of 4
the Senate and the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 5
of the House of Representatives. 6
(2) F
ULLY SCHEDULE.—The term ‘‘fully sched-7
ule’’, with respect to booking an appointment, means 8
that the appointment booking is completed, rather 9
than simply requested. 10
Æ
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