H.R. 10966: Supporting Veteran Mothers Act of 2026

This bill would require the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to make sure its medical facilities have enough staff specifically assigned to help coordinate maternity care for veterans.

What the staffing rule would do

The bill would add a new rule to VA law requiring each covered VA medical facility to have at least one full-time equivalent employee dedicated to maternity care coordination duties, without being assigned unrelated work. The required staffing level would be based on the number of pregnant or postpartum patients a facility serves each year.

The bill applies to VA medical facilities with more than 100 patients.

How the VA would check compliance

At least once every two years, each covered facility would have to review its staffing levels and document:

• who is assigned maternity care coordination duties, and whether they also do other work;
• how many pregnant or postpartum patients the facility serves each year; and
• whether the facility meets the required minimum staffing level.

What happens if a facility is short-staffed

If a facility does not meet the staffing requirement, its ხელმძღვანent would have to submit a staffing action plan to the VA Secretary and the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees within 45 days. That plan would need to explain what staffing changes are needed, how long they should take, and what resources are required. The facility would then have to carry out the plan promptly.

Waiver option

The bill would let the head of a facility request a waiver from submitting and carrying out a staffing plan if there are extraordinary circumstances, such as a local workforce shortage, that make the plan unlikely to work within a reasonable time.

Guidance, timeline, and reporting

The VA Secretary would have to issue guidance explaining how facilities should do these reviews, including standard methods for measuring staffing levels. The first guidance would be due within 180 days after enactment, and the first staffing reviews would have to be completed within 240 days after that guidance is issued.

The bill would also require the VA to report to Congress one year after the first reviews are due, and then annually for four years. Those reports would include data on staffing levels, whether facilities met the requirement, action plans, waiver requests, and other measures of coordinator capacity and performance. The VA would also have to publish a public summary of each report on its website.

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