VA must call veterans twice to reschedule cancelled mental health care
H.R. 2229 — No Veteran Falls Through the Cracks Act · Filed by Bryan Steil (R-WI) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Mar 18, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires the VA to actively reach out to veterans who cancel mental health appointments and attempt to reschedule them. If a veteran cancels an appointment by any method, the VA must call them at least twice to offer to reschedule, ensuring veterans don't lose access to mental health care due to a single cancellation.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is a mandate that the VA proactively reschedule cancelled mental health appointments. It is a straightforward access-protection measure with no hidden provisions or narrow beneficiaries.
What the text implies
- The bill does not specify a timeline for the second contact attempt, creating potential ambiguity about how quickly the VA must follow up after a cancellation.
- No enforcement mechanism or penalty is stated if the VA fails to contact veterans or reschedule appointments, leaving compliance dependent on administrative practice.
- The bill applies only to enrolled veterans in the VA patient enrollment system, potentially excluding homeless or recently discharged veterans not yet enrolled.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Veterans gain a concrete protective mechanism: the VA is required to proactively re-engage them after cancellations rather than allowing them to fall out of the system. This directly addresses a known barrier to mental health care access and reduces the risk of veterans losing continuity of care due to administrative friction.
Named in the bill
Department of Veterans Affairs, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Veterans enrolled in VA patient enrollment system (38 U.S.C. § 1705(a))
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Mar 18, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Mar 18, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Veterans' Affairs · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $310,451 in lobbying spend. A filing names 170 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Bryan Steil, the sponsor, reported $1,735,700 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Disabled American Veterans — $310,451 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 21, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (961 characters) on Aug 14, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 21, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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