Kelly Hayes
U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist has introduced legislation to promote the recruitment and training of specialty healthcare providers at the VA and in the community who understand the health needs of women veterans.
The bill, called Improving Specialty Care for Women Veterans Act, also allows women veterans seeking specialty care to choose a doctor that meets their needs and has training in gender-specific care, including a doctor who is a woman.
Currently, the VA provides gender-specific care for primary care, mental healthcare, military sexual trauma and reproductive health, including the ability to see providers who themselves are women. However, women veterans do not have the option of gender-specific care when seeing providers in other specialties, even though they face the same sensitive health needs as in specialties where gender-specific care is already offered.
“Like all veterans, women veterans suffer from the seen and unseen wounds of war – wounds that require specialized, high-quality VA healthcare. But not enough women can access gender-specific care at the VA,” Crist said in a statement. “By expanding the specialties that offer gender-specific care, hiring and training more women doctors and nurses who understand the needs of women veterans, we can provide our women veterans with the level of care they deserve and have earned in defense of our nation.”
In addition to improving the recruitment and training of specialty health care providers, the Improving Specialty Care for Women Veterans Act would be available to interns, residents, doctors and nurse practitioners both in the VA and in the community care program, and allow women veterans to see which doctors have participated in the program and choose to visit a provider who has participated, so long as that patient would otherwise be allowed to see that provider.
