Sponsors (2)
The bill expands and standardizes veterans' access to suicide-prevention coordinators (including off-hours), improving crisis coverage, but does so without new hiring authority—raising workload, quality, and budgetary trade-offs for the VA and its services.
Veterans will have guaranteed access to suicide prevention coordinators at every VA medical center, including availability outside regular hours, improving crisis support, care continuity, and potentially reducing suicide risk.
VA patients and state stakeholders will see more consistent suicide-prevention services nationwide because coordinator coverage is standardized across VA medical centers.
Federal employees and veterans will be affected because the prohibition on creating new FTEs limits the VA Secretary's ability to hire dedicated coordinators, forcing reassignments and increasing workloads for existing staff.
Veterans may experience reduced service quality or longer response times during crises if coordinators are required to cover off-hours without additional staffing.
Taxpayers and veterans could face higher operational costs (overtime, reassignments) that must be absorbed within existing VA budgets, potentially diverting funding from other veteran services.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires VA medical centers to ensure a suicide prevention coordinator is available, including outside normal hours, without authorizing new FTEs.
Requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to ensure a suicide prevention coordinator is available at every VA medical center, including coverage outside regular operating hours when needed to provide suicide prevention planning services. The requirement explicitly does not authorize hiring any additional full‑time equivalent (FTE) positions to meet that availability requirement.
Official title: To amend title 38, United States Code, to require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to ensure that a suicide prevention coordinator is available at each medical center of the Department of Veterans Affairs, including outside the operating hours of such medical center, as needed, to accommodate a request for suicide prevention planning services, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 10, 2026 by Erin Houchin · Last progress June 10, 2026