Section 1 Short title
This Act may be cited as the “Modernizing Department of Veterans Affairs Disability Benefit Questionnaires Act”.
Modernizing Department of Veterans Affairs Disability Benefit Questionnaires Act
A BILL
To require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to make certain improvements relating to the transmission of disability benefits questionnaire data to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes.
Sec. 2 Modernization of Department of Veterans Affairs disability benefit questionnaires
Requirement for transmission of certain information in machine-Readable format—
Requirement— Not later than 180 days after enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall require all disability benefit questionnaire data collected in the course of medical disability examinations made by persons other than employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs under section 305 of the Veterans Benefits Improvement Act of 1996 (Public Law 104–275; 38 U.S.C. 5101 note) to be transmitted to the Department in a machine-readable format.
Issuance of standards— Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall issue standards for the transmission of disability benefit questionnaire data in a machine-readable format as required under paragraph (1).
Plan for information technology system modification— Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit to the Committees on Veterans’ Affairs of the Senate and House of Representatives a plan to modify the information technology systems and processes of the Department to enable a non-Department health care professional selected by a claimant to transmit to the Department, in a machine-readable format, disability benefit questionnaire data, including complete disability benefit questionnaires rather than partial questionnaires or individual elements of medical evidence.
Public availability of information— The Secretary shall make publicly available on the internet website of the Department referred to in section 5101(d) of title 38, United States Code—
a description of the standards issued under subsection (a)(2); and
the plan required under subsection (b).
Definitions— In this section:
The term “claimant” has the meaning given such term in section 5100 of title 38, United States Code.
The term “machine-readable” has the meaning given such term in section 3502(18) of title 44, United States Code.