This bill mandates the VA to establish clear guidance and performance metrics for efficiently obtaining medical documentation from community care providers following veteran referrals.
Abraham Hamadeh
Representative
AZ-8
The CARING for Our Veterans Health Act of 2025 aims to significantly improve how the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) manages community care provided to veterans. This bill mandates the VA to develop clear guidance and set performance goals for VA medical centers to ensure timely and complete collection of medical documentation from community providers. Furthermore, it requires regular reporting to Congress on the progress of implementing these new coordination and training standards.
New VA Bill Mandates Better Tracking of Community Care Records, Focusing on Provider Training and Accountability
The “CARING for Our Veterans Health Act of 2025” (or just the CARING Act) is about making sure the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) actually knows what kind of care veterans are getting when they see outside doctors. For veterans who use the VA’s community care program—meaning they are referred to a private doctor instead of a VA facility—this bill tries to fix the notorious problem of those records getting lost in the shuffle.
The Paperwork Problem: Closing the Loop
Section 2 of this Act tackles the core issue: the VA often refers a veteran out for care but never gets the final medical documentation back. Think of it like a contractor finishing a job but forgetting to send the final invoice and warranty details to the homeowner. The VA’s Under Secretary for Health must now direct the Office of Integrated Veteran Care to create clear guidance for every VA medical center on how to get those final records from community providers. This isn’t just a suggestion; the VA must set specific goals and performance measures to track how well each medical center is actually obtaining this documentation. For a veteran, this means their VA doctor should have a complete picture of their health, whether they were seen down the street at a private clinic or at a major VA hospital.
New Rules for Outside Doctors
If you’re a private doctor or clinic that contracts with the VA to treat veterans, this bill introduces some new administrative hoops. The VA will now set and monitor goals to ensure community providers complete “required core training courses.” While the bill doesn’t specify what these courses are—which is a bit vague—it does mandate that the VA must give clear, accurate information on which trainings are required versus which are merely recommended. The goal here is standardization: making sure every doctor treating a veteran through the VA system understands the specific administrative and clinical requirements. However, this could place a burden on busy private practices; if the training is extensive, it might discourage some providers from participating in the community care network, which could reduce options for veterans.
Accountability by the Quarter
One of the strongest parts of this legislation is the strict reporting requirement. The Under Secretary for Health must submit a detailed report to Congress within 120 days of the bill becoming law, outlining every step taken to implement these new record-tracking and training mandates. They must then submit follow-up reports every 120 days until everything is fully implemented. This is designed to put pressure on the VA administrative staff to actually build and deploy the necessary tracking systems quickly. For the VA staff responsible for developing this guidance and tracking the performance metrics, this means their workload just increased significantly, and Congress will be watching their progress every four months.