The Department of Veterans Affairs is getting a laundry list of changes to the way it delivers health care and benefits now that Congress has passed sweeping year-end legislation.
The House adopted the 21st Century Veterans Health Care and Benefits Improvement Act, Senator Elizabeth Dole in a vote of 382 to 12 Monday evening. The bill now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk.
Among its provisions, the Dole Act would expand salary flexibilities for certain VA health care workers and allow the VA to provide back pay to health care workers who exceed salary caps between January 2006 and December 2017.
The bill would also require the VA to develop a plan to expand same-day medical appointment scheduling.
The omnibus legislation brings together several bills that lawmakers have introduced during this session of Congress.
House VA Committee Chairman Mike Bost (R-Ill.) said that among the bill’s provisions, it expands veterans’ homelessness and employment programs. He also said the bill would also put “veteran health care back in the hands of veterans and hold VA officials accountable.”
“The Dole Act is not only a common-sense bill, but it would save lives and move the VA forward rather than backward,” Bost said on the House floor Monday night.
The Senate approved the bill last week. The House initially passed the Dole Act last month, but lawmakers voted Monday on a final version that includes the technical changes made in the Senate.
Committee member Mark Takano (D-Calif.) said the final version of the bill makes “no substantive changes” to the version passed by the House in November.
“The journey of this bill has been quite long and winding, which is regrettable. But I’m happy that we can at least pass important veterans legislation this Congress, even if it comes at the last possible moment,” Takano said.
More than 40 veterans service organizations support the Dole Act. The Elizabeth Dole Foundation, a military family advocacy group, celebrated the bill’s final passage.
“The resources, reforms, and improvements contained in this legislation are precisely the type of advances that only Congress can make, and I applaud the Members and their staffs who have never wavered in their resolve to bring this bill to fruition. law on the office of the president,” the former senator said. . R-N.C. Elizabeth Dole said in a statement.
The Dole Act requires that every VA physician, podiatrist, optometrist and dentist receive an annual salary assessment and would give the VA more flexibility to offer salary bonuses, as well as recruitment, retention and relocation bonuses to these VA workers. health.
The VA should provide Congress with an annual report on the results of these salary assessments and any resulting market salary adjustments.
The Dole Act would also give the VA the authority to pay retroactive compensation to health care employees who exceeded annual salary limits between January 8, 2006 and December 31, 2017.
The bill would allow the VA to waive salary limitations for up to 300 people, “if deemed necessary for the recruitment or retention of essential health care personnel.”
The Dole Act would also require the VA to develop staffing models for its Office of Veterans Integrated Care, Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISN), and VA medical centers that will allow the department to “ensure access rapid access to care and to effectively supervise the provision”. care. »
The VA should also submit annual reports to Congress and the Government Accountability Office on its efforts to achieve these personnel goals.
THE VA says it keeps its promises more health care and benefits to more veterans than ever before, breaking previous records.
The department is experiencing this record workload under the PACT Act of 2022, which expands health care and benefits to veterans exposed to toxic substances during their military service.
The Dole Act would require the VA to incorporate performance measures and accountability measures into performance evaluations of VA employees responsible for providing timely access to care.
The bill requires the VA to develop a strategic plan to implement “value-based care” that focuses on quality, provider performance, and patient experience. This plan would include an assessment of the VA’s IT infrastructure and workforce challenges.
After the report is released, the ministry would launch a three-year pilot of value-based care in its primary care, mental health and addiction services.
The Dole Act would require all new VA employees to receive training from the VA Office of Inspector General on reporting wrongdoing.
Rep. Morgan Lutrell (R-Texas), chairman of the Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs Subcommittee, said the Dole Act includes his bill, the Disability Benefits Questionnaire Act of Ministry of Veterans Affairs for modernization.
Lutrell said VA contractors who perform disability reviews are not required to submit Disability Benefits Questionnaires (DBQs) in a format that can easily be processed by the VA’s claims automation software.
“This causes backlogs and delays that could be avoided by submitting DBQs based on a machine-readable standard,” he said.
The bill would require these DBQs to be readable by an automated program.
“Computerization of data is the key to helping VA process and adjudicate veterans’ claims more quickly,” Lutrell said. “As the VA moves toward automation, standardizing DBQ data will be crucial for timely and accurate claims processing.”
Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), who shepherded the Dole Act through the House, applauded the bill’s provisions that reauthorize and fund the VA’s VET-TEC program through September 2027, and would allow up to 4,000 veterans to enroll in the program. program each year.
The VET-TEC program places veterans in training to gain computer skills or to start or advance a technology career. The VET-TEC program has started a five-year pilot project.
The VA stopped accepting new applications in April 2024. The program has an 84% graduation rate for the 12,000 veterans who have already completed their training.
The Dole Act directs the Department of the Interior to launch its own pilot program to hire veterans for conservation and resource management positions.
“I look forward to taking this final step to send this bill to the president’s desk and give our veterans the VA reforms they demand and deserve,” Ciscomani said.
The final version of the bill no longer includes the Reset Lawa bipartisan bill that would have blocked the VA from rolling out a new electronic health record to more of its facilities, until the six VA sites already using the new system meet certain performance standards.
The VA has suspended all future deployments of the Oracle-Cerner EHR in April 2023 to address ongoing issues reported by VA employees at facilities already using the new system.
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