Sponsors (8)
The bill improves veteran care and claims coordination by sharing opioid prescription histories with community providers and TPAs, at the tradeoff of increased privacy risks, potential impacts on access to pain treatment, and added implementation costs.
Veterans who get care outside the VA and their clinicians will have access to veterans' opioid prescription histories, helping prescribers avoid dangerous overlaps or drug interactions and improving patient safety.
Veterans receiving community care and entities that process their claims (TPAs and contractors) will see improved care coordination and more accurate claims processing because opioid-history sharing reduces information gaps.
Veterans face increased privacy and confidentiality risk because transmitting opioid prescription histories to non‑VA providers and TPAs expands who holds sensitive health data.
Some veterans could have harder or delayed access to needed pain treatments if receiving providers or TPAs misinterpret, over‑rely on, or use opioid history as a blunt reason to restrict prescriptions.
VA, community providers, TPAs, and taxpayers will incur additional administrative and IT costs to implement secure transmission, access controls, and data-sharing processes.
Based on analysis of 1 section of legislative text.
Requires VA to transmit a covered veteran’s opioid prescription history to non‑VA providers furnishing VA care and to Third Party Administrators.
Requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to include a rule that VA transmit a covered veteran’s opioid prescription history from VA records both to non‑VA health care providers delivering care under VA authority and to a Third Party Administrator. It also defines “Third Party Administrator” by cross‑reference to existing law so those administrators are specifically included in the transmission requirement. The change is narrowly focused on expanding which entities receive opioid prescription history when VA shares prescription data, aiming to improve care coordination and claims/administration involving opioid prescriptions for veterans.
Official title: To amend title 38, United States Code, to require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to transmit a veteran's history of opioid prescriptions to a Community Care health care provider.
Introduced May 7, 2026 by Mike Collins · Last progress May 7, 2026