Veterans Community Care Scheduling Improvement Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their endorsement of this critical piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the men and women who served and sacrificed for our Nation deserve the best healthcare that our country can offer, and they certainly shouldn't have to wait weeks or longer just to find out if they can make an appointment to see a doctor.

This is an issue that has plagued the VA healthcare system for decades. The good news is that the VA community care program is helping us turn things around by allowing veterans to receive medical services from local healthcare providers outside of the traditional VA hospitals and clinics right in their own communities closer to home. But the system is far from perfect.

Veterans across the country will tell you that community care appointments can be harder to schedule and too often are not even offered as an option.

This has led to longer wait times, farther drives to appointments, and greater inconvenience.

I personally experienced this myself when trying to get scheduled for a routine audiology appointment. I got called by a VA scheduler, then they had to call a number of providers, then they called me back, and when they actually set the appointment, it was on a date that I was here in Washington and not back home in Michigan. I had to reschedule the entire thing and start all over again.

Obviously, this isn't what we want for any of our veterans, and that is why I urge my colleagues to support my Veterans Community Care Scheduling Improvement Act, the bill before us today.

This bill would permanently require VA facilities to use a single digital interface called the External Provider Scheduling system to finally allow VA staff to simultaneously view all available appointments at both VA facilities and those participating in the community care program. It would all be in one centralized interface.

The VA has already rolled this out nationwide through internal process as we were working on this bill, and the results speak for themselves.

VA employees today can now book as many as 25 appointments each day compared to just a small handful through the manual process they were following before.

My legislation simply makes this positive change permanent by requiring the VA to keep this simplified, streamlined system in place beyond the pilot program they have today. Ensuring this progress is not undone by a future administration will give our veterans the access and certainty that they have earned.

It may sound simple, but the least we can do for those who served is make sure they can get a doctor's appointment when they need it.

I thank Congresswoman Budzinski for working with me on this important legislation to support our Nation's heroes, and I thank Chairman Bost and the full committee for bringing it to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''

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