Section 1 Short title
This Act may be cited as the “Department of Veterans Affairs Provider Accountability Act”.
Department of Veterans Affairs Provider Accountability Act
A BILL
To amend title 38, United States Code, to require the Under Secretary of Health to report major adverse personnel actions involving certain health care employees to the National Practitioner Data Bank and to applicable State licensing boards, and for other purposes.
Sec. 2 Accountability within Veterans Health Administration
Reporting major adverse actions to National Practitioner Data Bank and State licensing boards— Section 7461 of title 38, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:
“(f) Whenever the Under Secretary for Health (or an official designated by the Under Secretary) brings charges based on conduct or performance against a section 7401(1) employee and as a result of those charges a major adverse action is taken against the employee, the Under Secretary shall, not later than 30 days after the date on which such major adverse action is carried out, transmit to the National Practitioner Data Bank and the applicable State licensing board the name of the employee, a description of the major adverse action, and a description of the reason for the major adverse action.”
Prohibition on signing settlements with certain clauses—
In general— Except as provided in paragraph (2), the Secretary of Veterans Affairs may not enter into a settlement agreement relating to a claim by an employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs under which the Department would be required to conceal a serious medical error or purge a negative record from a personnel file of an employee of the Department.
Exception— Paragraph (1) shall not apply to a negative record if the head of the Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection of the Department and the Special Counsel jointly certify that the negative record is not legitimate.