The mental health benefit will allow people to access treatment for mental health immediately upon application. In the past, people had to wait for a decision to come from Veterans Affairs. As we've spoken about, sometimes those decisions take too long. We recognize that immediate access to mental health is important. Any time spent waiting for mental health approaches, services or treatment can be too long and allows for somebody to get worse, frankly, in terms of their mental health. This will allow people, upon application, to immediately access mental health treatment. While that decision is being made, they'll still be able to access treatment to ensure that their conditions are being treated immediately.
On May 6th, 2022. See this statement in context.