Bill SponsorBILLSPONSOR
Bill Sponsor
Politicians
Bills
House Bill 3558
115th Congress(2017-2018)
Improve Access to Care for Our Female Veterans Act
Introduced
Introduced
Introduced in House on Jul 28, 2017
Overview
Text
Introduced in House 
Jul 28, 2017
Not Scanned for Linkage
About Linkage
Multiple bills can contain the same text. This could be an identical bill in the opposite chamber or a smaller bill with a section embedded in a larger bill.
Bill Sponsor regularly scans bill texts to find sections that are contained in other bill texts. When a matching section is found, the bills containing that section can be viewed by clicking "View Bills" within the bill text section.
Bill Sponsor is currently only finding exact word-for-word section matches. In a future release, partial matches will be included.
Introduced in House(Jul 28, 2017)
Jul 28, 2017
Not Scanned for Linkage
About Linkage
Multiple bills can contain the same text. This could be an identical bill in the opposite chamber or a smaller bill with a section embedded in a larger bill.
Bill Sponsor regularly scans bill texts to find sections that are contained in other bill texts. When a matching section is found, the bills containing that section can be viewed by clicking "View Bills" within the bill text section.
Bill Sponsor is currently only finding exact word-for-word section matches. In a future release, partial matches will be included.
Jump To
H. R. 3558 (Introduced-in-House)


115th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 3558


To direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to make certain improvements relating to inspections of Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities and improving care for women.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

July 28, 2017

Mrs. Brooks of Indiana (for herself and Mrs. Murphy of Florida) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs

A BILL

To direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to make certain improvements relating to inspections of Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities and improving care for women.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. Short title.

This Act may be cited as the “Improve Access to Care for Our Female Veterans Act”.

SEC. 2. Findings; sense of Congress.

(a) Findings.—Congress makes the following findings:

(1) The Department of Veterans Affairs has policies in place to help ensure the privacy, safety, and dignity of women veterans when they receive care at its medical facilities.

(2) A Government Accountability Office report found many instances of noncompliance with such policies.

(3) Women veterans are the fastest growing cohort within the veteran community.

(4) Women serve in every branch of the Armed Forces and represent nearly 15 percent of the members of the Armed Forces currently serving on active duty and 18 percent of members of the National Guard and reserve components.

(5) The number of women veterans using the medical care provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs is expected to increase dramatically.

(b) Sense of Congress.—It is the sense of Congress that—

(1) female veterans are put at risk by a system that is currently designed for men; and

(2) the Department of Veterans Affairs should follow through with commitments to ensure female veterans can access services tailored to their needs.

SEC. 3. Improvement of inspections of Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities and improvement of care for women provided by Department of Veterans Affairs.

(a) Improvement of inspections process.—The Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall strengthen the environment of care inspections process and oversight of such process by—

(1) expanding the list of requirements that facility staff inspect for compliance to align with the women's health handbook of the Veterans Health Administration;

(2) ensuring that all patient care areas of Department medical facilities are inspected as required;

(3) clarifying the roles and responsibilities of Department medical facility staff responsible for identifying and addressing compliance; and

(4) establishing a process to verify that noncompliance information reported by facilities to the Veterans Health Administration central office is accurate and complete.

(b) Improvement of care for women.—

(1) MONITORING OF SEX-SPECIFIC CARE SERVICES.—To improve care for women veterans, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall monitor women veterans' access to sex-specific care services under current and future community care contracts. Such monitoring shall include an examination of appointment scheduling and completion times, driving times to appointments, and reasons appointments could not be scheduled with community providers.

(2) DEFINITIONS.—In this subsection:

(A) The term “sex-specific care services” means mammography, maternity care, and gynecology.

(B) The term “community care contract” means an agreement described in section 101(d) of the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 (Public Law 113–146).