Sec. 724. Improvement of availability of care for veterans from facilities and providers of the Department of Defense
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Not less frequently than annually, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall conduct outreach to increase awareness among veterans enrolled in the system of annual patient enrollment of the Department of Veterans Affairs established and operated under section 1705(a) of title 38, United States Code, of the ability of those veterans to receive care at military medical treatment facilities. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall ensure training for staff and contractors involved in scheduling, or assisting in scheduling, appointments for care under the community care program specifically includes training regarding options for referral to facilities and providers of the Department of Defense.
Subsection
(g)of section 1703 of title 38, United States Code, is amended— in the subsection heading, by inserting after and preferred providers ; and network by adding at the end the following new paragraph: The Secretary shall consider providers under subsection (c)(2) to be preferred providers under this section. . The Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall develop and implement action plans at covered facilities— to expand the partnership between the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs with respect to the provision of health care; to improve communication between the Department of Veterans Affairs and pertinent command and director leadership of military medical treatment facilities; to increase utilization of military medical treatment facilities with excess capacity; to increase case volume and complexity for graduate medical education programs of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs; to improve resource sharing agreements or permits, as applicable, between the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which would also ensure lessened barriers to shared facility spaces; and to increase access to care for veterans described in subsection
(a)in areas in which a military medical treatment facility is located that is identified by the Secretary of Defense as having excess capacity. The action plans required under paragraph
(1)shall include the following: Cross-credentialing and privileging of health care providers, including nurses, medical technicians, and other support staff, to jointly care for beneficiaries in medical facilities of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Expediting access to installations of the Department of Defense for staff and beneficiaries of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Including in-kind or non-cash payment or reimbursement options for expenses incurred by either the Department of Defense or the Department of Veterans Affairs. Allowing eligible veterans to seek certain services at military medical treatment facilities without referral or preauthorization from the Department of Veterans Affairs, for which reimbursement to the Department of Defense will be made . The designation of a coordinator within each covered facility to serve as a liaison between the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs and to lead the implementation of such action plan. A mechanism for monitoring the effectiveness of such action plan on an ongoing basis, to include establishing relevant performance goals and collecting data to assess progress towards those goals. Prioritize the integration of relevant information technology and other systems or processes to enable seamless information sharing, referrals and ancillary orders, payment methodologies and billing processes, and workload attribution when Department of Veterans Affairs personnel provide services at Department of Defense facilities or when Department of Defense personnel provide services at Department of Veterans Affairs facilities. Any other matter that the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs consider appropriate. Before implementing any action plan required under paragraph
(1)at a covered facility or covered facilities, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall ensure that approval for the action plan is obtained from— the co-chairs of the Department of Veterans Affairs-Department of Defense Joint Executive Committee established under section 320 of title 38, United States Code; the local installation commander for the covered facility of the Department of Defense; and the director of the relevant medical center of the Department of Veterans Affairs with respect to any covered facility or covered facilities of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report containing the action plans required under paragraph (1). Not later than one year after submitting the report required under subparagraph (A), the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report containing— a status update on the progress of implementing the action plans required under paragraph (1); and recommendations for developing subsequent action plans for each facility with respect to which there is a sharing agreement in place. The Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall ensure that there is a lead coordinator at each facility of the Department of Defense or the Department of Veterans Affairs, as the case may be, with respect to which there is a sharing agreement in place. The Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall maintain on a publicly available website a list of all sharing agreements in place between medical facilities of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall carry out this section notwithstanding any limitation or requirement under section 1104 of title 10, United States Code, or section 8111 of title 38, United States Code. The Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs may use funds available in the DOD–VA Health Care Sharing Incentive Fund established under section 8111(d)(2) of title 38, United States Code, to implement this section. Nothing in this section or the amendments made by this section shall be construed to require veterans to seek care in facilities of the Department of Defense. Section 5503(d)(7) of title 38, United States Code, is amended by striking November 30, 2031 and inserting April 30, 2032 . In this section: The term appropriate committees of Congress means— the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Veterans Affairs of the Senate; and the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Veterans Affairs of the House of Representatives. The term community care program means the Veterans Community Care Program under section 1703 of title 38, United States Code. The term covered facility means— a military medical treatment facility ias defined in section 1073c(j) of title 10, United States Code; or a medical facility of the Department of Veterans Affairs located nearby a military medical treatment facility described in subparagraph (A). The term sharing agreement means an agreement for sharing of health-care resources between the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs under section 1104 of title 10, United States Code, or section 8111 of title 38, United States Code. The term veteran has the meaning given that term in section 101 of title 38, United States Code.