Tester Presses VA Montana to Improve Care for Native Veterans

Tester calls on VA Montana to prioritize delivering culturally-competent health care for Native American veterans

Continuing his push to ensure Native American veterans receive the support and care they earned, U.S. Senator Jon Tester is pressing VA Montana leadership to improve its delivery of culturally-competent health care to Native American veterans in Montana.

“I write today to encourage Montana VA Health Care System (VA Montana) leadership to continue to prioritize culturally-competent health care for Native American veterans, and ensure information about these services is communicated to all Tribes and veterans across Montana,” wrote Senator Tester in a letter to VA Montana Executive Director Duane Gill.

Tester highlighted steps VA has made in recent years to increase Native veterans’ access to their earned health care, including implementing his legislation to waive copayments for Native veterans and the PACT Act, which has delivered health care and benefits to generations of toxic-exposed Native veterans. Specifically, he noted VA Montana has improved its collaboration with local Tribes and Montana Native American veterans, including hosting local PACT Act health care and benefits fairs with Tribes and building a sweat lodge on its Fort Harrison campus.

While Tester touted the strides VA has made in recent years, he also underscored his concerns with recent reports of Montana Native veterans’ difficulty accessing certain services: “However, I am concerned with recent reports I’ve heard that accessing the sweat lodge has been challenging for some veterans, and there are still instances of staff lacking understanding and respect when working with Montana Native veterans. VA Montana must ensure that processes and procedures for accessing the sweat lodge are clear and equitable for all Native veterans. All employees, clinical and non-clinical, should be required to accomplish cultural competency training to ensure they are treating all veterans at VA Montana with respect.”

Tester also called on VA Montana to reopen the Browning VA Clinic, which serves a high number of local Native American veterans, as quickly as possible. This push comes after years of advocacy from local veterans: “Patient care must resume at the clinic as soon as possible and I encourage VA Montana to continue exploring opportunities to collaborate with Tribes and Native veterans to ensure culturally-competent care at the Browning facility and all of VA Montana’s facilities.” 

In 2021, Tester led his Committee colleagues in successfully securing a law to eliminate copayments for Native veterans accessing VA health care as part of a comprehensive end-of-year bill. At a Committee hearing in 2022, Tester urged VA officials to quickly implement the law, and following his pressure, the Department announced in April 2023 it would make veteran copayment benefits retroactive and reimburse eligible Native veterans for any copayments they made dating back to January of the prior year.

A staunch advocate of supporting Native American veterans, Tester fought to secure his American Indian and Alaska Native Veterans Mental Health Act as part of the an omnibus federal funding package last December to deliver tailored outreach and culturally competent mental health care to Native veterans. He is also continuing his push this year to pass his Native American Direct Loan Improvement Actto help Native American veterans achieve homeownership. 

Read the Senator’s full letter HERE.