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Nonvets must pay for emergency VA care

Veterans hospitals may be open to nonveterans after a natural disaster or emergency, but private citizens who are neither veterans nor disaster workers will be billed for the cost of their treatment, Veterans Affairs Department officials announced Monday.

A Monday notice in the Federal Register implements a 2002 law authorizing VA hospitals and clinics to provide disaster relief care. The federal government will pay for the cost of treating federal workers, including service members, and other disaster workers will be reimbursed under sharing arrangements.

Other people will have to pay for care unless they are veterans, according to the new rule, which takes effect immediately.

Treatment would not be automatic under the new policy. VA facilities could be open to the public in a major disaster or emergency declared by the president, or in a disaster or emergency in which the Health and Human Services Department orders the National Disaster Medical System to be activated, according to the notice.

The VA Emergency Preparedness Act of 2002 allows VA to provide hospital care and medical services during and immediately following disasters and national emergencies to people who are not otherwise eligible. The law sets rules for how VA would be reimbursed by other government agencies, but left open whether private citizens receiving emergency care would have to pay for it.

In the report accompanying the bill, lawmakers suggested that emergency care to private citizens could be free, but VA officials who decided to bill people for services said they worried free care would drain the veterans health care budget, as there was no assurance the government would offset the costs.

The one exception is that veterans will not be charged, regardless of whether they are enrolled in the VA health care system.