Veterans HOPE Act

VA study of veteran opioid deaths

If enacted, the VA Secretary would have to finish a formal review within 18 months. The review would cover veterans who died from opioid overdoses in the five years before enactment. Those veterans must have received VA hospital care or medical services during the five years before death. The review must examine 12 topics. It would count deaths and give demographic details (age, sex, race, ethnicity). It would list medicines prescribed and found, and flag drugs with black box warnings, off‑label use, and psychotropic medicines. It would summarize diagnoses that led to prescriptions and count cases with multiple concurrent prescriptions. It would report timing between the last opioid receipt and death, the cause of death, and the share with combat experience or trauma. It would identify VA facilities with high prescribing and treatment rates. It would describe VA prescribing policies and efforts to track and dispose of unused or past‑date prescription opioids. It would note patterns found and give recommendations, with emphasis on research about veterans who had not filed for an opioid prescription in the three months before death. Within 45 days after the review, the VA would send the report to Congress, make it public, and brief House and Senate Veterans' Affairs committees.