S.Amdt. 6437

This amendment, submitted by Ms. Hassan, aims to add a section to bill S. 4784 that requires the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to create and carry out a plan to improve how health care appointments are scheduled. This plan must focus on improvements for both the employees who schedule the appointments and the patients receiving care.

The amendment requires the Secretary to address specific objectives:

• Developing a system where patients and staff can view available appointments for primary, mental health, and specialty care.
• Creating a self-service platform for patients to view and fully schedule appointments, request referrals if needed, and cancel or reschedule.
• Ensuring patients can speak with a scheduler over the phone to check availability and fully schedule appointments.
• Implementing other necessary functions like oversight, metric tracking, and employee training.

To hold the Department accountable, the amendment mandates the following:

• The plan must be submitted to the appropriate committees of Congress within one year of the Act's enactment.
• The plan must be fully implemented within two years of its submission.
• The Secretary must provide reports at the one-year and two-year marks detailing the costs, deployment schedules, goals achieved, and challenges faced.
• If any objective cannot be implemented, the Secretary must provide an explanation and an alternative plan.

The amendment also specifies that the plan must consider the Electronic Health Record Modernization Program and cannot prevent veterans from scheduling appointments through non-online processes if they prefer to do so.