Protecting mental health care continuity for transitioning service members
H.R. 5611 — Mental Health Care Provider Retention Act of 2025 · Filed by Shri Thanedar (D-MI) · Introduced Sep 26, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill allows service members transitioning from military medical care to VA care to continue seeing their current military mental health provider during the transition period, with the VA reimbursing the Defense Department for those services. The individual retains priority access at the military facility and can switch providers if their current provider leaves or if they relocate.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is enabling continuity of mental health care during a transition between federal health systems. It is a straightforward patient-protection measure with no hidden provisions or narrow beneficiaries.
What the text implies
- Reimbursement mechanism between DoD and VA may create administrative overhead and inter-agency accounting complexity, though the bill does not specify reimbursement rates or dispute resolution.
- Bill does not address what happens if DoD provider capacity is exceeded by VA-enrollees seeking continued care, potentially creating access bottlenecks at military facilities.
- Medical records transfer requirement (subsection f) assumes electronic interoperability between DoD and VA systems; gaps in data exchange could delay or fragment care continuity.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Transitioning service members gain continuity of mental health care and provider relationships during a vulnerable transition period, reducing gaps in treatment and improving outcomes. The bill imposes no new costs on individuals and creates a reimbursement mechanism between agencies rather than shifting costs to patients.
Named in the bill
Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Military medical treatment facilities, VA patient enrollment system (38 U.S.C. § 1705)
Where it stands
- Sep 26, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Sep 26, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Veterans' Affairs and House Committee on Armed Services · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Armed Services, and in addition to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, for a…”
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.
Shri Thanedar, the sponsor, reported $84,000 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 (2,904 characters) on May 21, 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.
“Protecting mental health care continuity for transitioning service members” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr5611 Report an error
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