H.R. 2426 — Veterans Mental Health and Addiction Therapy Quality of Care Act

This section directs the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, not later than 90 days after enactment, to enter into an agreement with an independent organization outside the department to conduct a study comparing the quality of mental health and addiction therapy care provided by VA providers to non-VA providers across modalities such as telehealth, inpatient, intensive outpatient, outpatient, and residential treatment. The organization must submit a report assessing specified elements—including health outcome improvements (e.g., symptom scores, suicide risk via Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale), use of evidence-based practices, coordination gaps, veteran-centric care satisfaction, integrated care for co-occurring conditions, post-treatment monitoring for up to three years, and average time to initiate services—to the congressional Veterans' Affairs Committees and publish it publicly not later than 18 months after the agreement date.