Audit of representative sample of veterans receiving care and services under Veterans Community Care Program

Not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act, and not less frequently than annually thereafter for the following five years, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall— (1) conduct an audit, for the one-year period preceding the audit, of— (A) the number of veterans eligible for care or services under section 1703 of title 38, United States Code, and the reasons for such eligibility, including multiple such reasons for veterans eligible under more than one eligibility criteria; (B) of those veterans eligible for care or services under section 1703 of title 38, United States Code, the number of veterans who are informed of such eligibility; (C) the number of veterans who opt to seek care or services under such section; (D) the number of veterans who do not opt to seek care or services under such section; (E) the timeliness of referrals for care or services under such section and the timeliness of receipt of such care or services, including whether care or services received by the veteran through a non-Department of Veterans Affairs provider had a shorter wait time than the average wait time for such care or services at a facility of the Department; (F) the number of requests for an appeal of a denial of care or services under such section using the clinical appeals process of the Veterans Health Administration; (G) the timeliness of each such appeal; and (H) the outcome of each such appeal; and (2) submit to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs of the House of Representatives a report on the audit conducted under paragraph (1).