US Congress Senate Bill 788 (Prior Session Legislation)

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Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)
Status: Introduced on March 30 2017 - 25% progression, died in committee
Action: 2017-03-30 - Read twice and referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
Pending: Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]

Veteran Overmedication Prevention Act of 2017 This bill requires the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to contract with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (or another private, not-for-profit entity with comparable expertise) to review the deaths of all covered veterans who died by suicide during the last five years. A "covered veteran" is any veteran who received VA hospital care or medical services during the five-year period preceding the veteran's death. The review shall include: the total numbers of veterans who died by a violent death or by an accidental death during such period; each veteran's age, gender, race, and ethnicity; a list of medications and substances prescribed to such veterans, as annotated on toxicology reports; a summary of medical diagnoses by VA physicians that led to such prescriptions in cases of anxiety and depressive disorders; the number of instances in which such a veteran was concurrently on multiple medications prescribed by VA physicians; the number of such veterans who were not taking any VA-prescribed medication; the percentage of such veterans treated for anxiety or depressive disorders who received a non-medication first-line treatment compared to the percentage who received medication only; the number of instances in which a non-medication first-line treatment was attempted and deemed ineffective, which led to prescribing medication; descriptions of how the VA determines and updates clinical practice guidelines for prescribing medications and of VA efforts to maintain appropriate staffing levels for mental health professionals; the percentage of such veterans with combat experience or related trauma; identification of VA medical facilities with markedly high prescription rates and suicide rates for treated veterans; an analysis of VA programs that collaborate with state Medicaid agencies and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; an analysis of VA medical center collaboration with medical examiners' offices or local jurisdictions to determine veteran mortality and cause of death; identification of a best practice model to collect and share veteran death certificate data; an assessment of any apparent patterns based on the review; and recommendations to improve the safety and well-being of veterans. The VA shall ensure that such data is compiled in a manner that allows it to be analyzed across all data fields for purposes of informing and updating VA clinical practice guidelines.

Veteran Overmedication Prevention Act of 2017

Sen. John McCain [R-AZ]

Date	Chamber	Action
2017-03-30	Senate	Read twice and referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

SB992 (Related) 2017-05-01 - Read twice and referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
HB2652 (Related) 2017-05-25 - Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.
HB5531 (Related) 2018-05-22 - Referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations.

Type	Source
Summary	https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/788/all-info
Text	https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/s788/BILLS-115s788is.pdf