Military CARE Act

119 HR 6796 IH: Military Care, Access, Reporting, and Evaluation Act U.S. House of Representatives 2025-12-17 text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain. I 119th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 6796 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES December 17, 2025 Mr. Horsford (for himself, Mrs. Kiggans of Virginia , Mr. Bacon , Ms. Houlahan , Ms. Goodlander , Mr. Bishop , Ms. McBride , and Mr. Moylan ) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services A BILL To require the Secretary of Defense to establish a digital system for the submission of complaints relating to access issues at military medical treatment facilities, and for other purposes. 1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Military Care, Access, Reporting, and Evaluation Act or the Military CARE Act . 2. Digital system for access assistance at military medical treatment facilities (a) Digital system for access assistance Not later than 18 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall establish a digital system under which— (1) a covered beneficiary who receives health care at a military medical treatment facility may electronically— (A) file a complaint relating to access to care at such military medical treatment facility; and (B) view the status of such complaint at any time, including the status of any interim or final action taken to address the complaint; (2) any complaint filed under paragraph (1)(A) shall be promptly transmitted to an appropriate patient advocate of the Department of Defense; and (3) complaints filed under paragraph (1)(A) with respect to a military medical treatment facility may be automatically aggregated and submitted to the Director of the Defense Health Agency on a quarterly basis. (b) Report on complaints filed under digital system (1) Submission Not later than March 1 of each year following the establishment of the system under subsection (a), the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the Committees on Armed Services of the House of Representatives and the Senate a report on the total number of complaints filed under such system. (2) Elements Each report under paragraph (1) shall include, for each military medical treatment facility with respect to which a complaint was filed under the system under subsection (a), the following: (A) An identification of the most common access to care complaints filed by covered beneficiaries with respect to such facility. (B) A comparison of the number of complaints so filed regarding access to specialty care versus access to primary care. (C) A comparison of the number of complaints so filed regarding access to pediatric versus non-pediatric care. (D) A comparison of the number of complaints so filed regarding administrative hurdles to access versus other access issues. (E) A summary of steps taken at such facility to reduce access to care complaints by covered beneficiaries. (c) Covered beneficiary defined In this section, the term covered beneficiary means an individual enrolled in a health care plan under the TRICARE program and eligible to receive care at a military medical treatment facility.