20. Department of Veterans Affairs · Notable
Expand telehealth and rural broadband to serve veterans and cut costs
Printed page 648 20. Department of Veterans Affairs
“Further explore how to leverage telehealth to reduce personnel costs across the enterprise and serve veterans. Continue to pursue expansion of broadband services to remote and rural areas.”
What has happened
- Partially done
VA finalized its rule on health care professionals practising via telehealth, implementing the VA MISSION Act and the FY2021 NDAA so that VA clinicians may treat veterans across State lines and from any location, which VA says “enables VA to maximize health care resource utilization and provide safe and convenient national health care to veterans using telehealth” — the resource-leverage half of the Quote. The broadband half is untouched: nothing in the window expands broadband service to remote and rural areas, and VA’s in-window rural work is transportation grants rather than connectivity.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Queries and sources, 2026-09-01:
- Federal Register API with
conditions[agencies][]=veterans-affairs-departmentfrom 2025-01-20:telehealthreturns four documents (the 2025-10-02 final rule, the PCAFC home-visit rule, a Privacy Act notice and the reproductive health services rule);broadbandreturns two, both false positives (a State Approving Agency jurisdiction rule and a federal financial assistance rule). - Corpus grep
broadbandacross every Federal Register file, presidential actions, bills and public laws — no VA action. news.va.govsearches: press releases fortelehealthandbroadbandreturn nothing; the blog search forbroadbandreturns nothing and fordigital dividereturns two patient-facing stories (2025-09-14, 2026-01-11) rather than a program.- Two-object ask with one object delivered, so partial under the leveling rules.
- Action
- expand
- Object
- VA telehealth and rural broadband
- ID
- 1780