Sponsors (19)
The bill makes it substantially easier for TRICARE beneficiaries to report and track access problems and gives Congress clearer data to drive fixes, but it raises administrative costs and risks creating digital-access inequities and unintended facility-level pressures.
TRICARE-covered service members and their families can file complaints online, track their status, and have cases routed promptly to DoD patient advocates, making it easier to report access problems and get faster individual assistance.
Quarterly aggregated metrics and annual facility-level reports, including summaries of corrective actions, increase transparency for Congress and create incentives for military treatment facilities to identify and fix access problems.
If the complaint option is primarily digital, beneficiaries with limited internet access or low digital literacy (e.g., some rural, low-income, or elderly military families) may be disadvantaged and less able to report or resolve care access problems.
Establishing and operating the digital complaints system plus ongoing reporting will increase DoD administrative costs, which could divert resources away from direct care delivery.
Publishing facility-level complaint breakdowns could stigmatize smaller facilities and create reputational pressure that leads local managers to focus on reporting or reputation management rather than direct patient care.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires DoD to build a digital complaints system for TRICARE-eligible patients at military treatment facilities, route complaints to patient advocates, aggregate data quarterly, and report annually to defense committees.
Introduced December 17, 2025 by Steven Horsford · Last progress December 17, 2025
Requires the Department of Defense to create a digital system that lets TRICARE-enrolled beneficiaries who get care at military medical treatment facilities file electronic complaints about access to care and track complaint status. Each complaint must be routed to a DoD patient advocate, aggregated quarterly for the Defense Health Agency, and reported annually to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees with facility-level breakdowns and summaries of corrective actions. The system must be in place within 18 months of enactment, and the first annual report is due by March 1 after the system is established. Reports must show totals and breakdowns by complaint type, specialty vs. primary care, pediatric vs. non-pediatric care, administrative hurdles vs. other issues, and actions taken to reduce complaints.