Sponsors (2)
The bill lets VA chaplains facilitate veteran connections to faith-based supports and integrate spiritual assessments into care, improving holistic support while raising risks to veteran privacy, potential coercion, and unwanted outreach.
Veterans can opt to have VA chaplains connect them with external religious or faith-based organizations for spiritual support and community resources.
Veterans and VA health providers can use spiritual assessments to inform and coordinate medical treatment plans when appropriate, supporting more holistic care.
Veterans' contact details and other information may be transmitted to outside organizations, creating privacy risks if consent procedures or data protections are insufficient.
Veterans may feel pressured to consent to share information or to engage with faith-based groups, creating a risk of perceived coercion in clinical settings.
Sharing contact information with external faith-based groups could expose veterans to unsolicited outreach or fundraising solicitations.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Allows VA chaplains, after a spiritual assessment and with patient consent, to share a veteran’s contact information with a patient‑specified faith-based organization.
Official title: To amend title 38, United States Code, to permit the voluntary transmission of patient contact information to certain religious or faith-based organizations by chaplains employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes.
Introduced October 14, 2025 by Keith Self · Last progress October 14, 2025
Permits VA-employed chaplains, after performing a spiritual assessment and only with the patient’s explicit election, to share that patient’s contact information with a non-VA religious or faith-based organization the patient chooses. The change adds a new statutory provision to chapter 17 of title 38 to authorize this referral process and updates the chapter table of sections.