Pub. L. 93-82, tit. I, sec. 101

Sec. 101. (a) Subparagraph (C) of section 601(4) of title 38, United States Code, is amended to read as follows: “(C) private facilities for which the Administrator contracts in order to provide (i) hospital care or medical services for persons suffering from service-connected disabilities or from disabilities for which such persons were discharged or released from the active military, naval, or air service; (ii) hospital care for women veterans; or (iii) hospital care for veterans in a State, territory, Commonwealth, or possession of the United States not contiguous to the forty-eight contiguous States, except that the annually determined average hospital patient load per thousand veteran population hospitalized at Veterans’ Administration expense in Government and private facilities in each such non-contiguous State may not exceed the average patient load per thousand veteran population hospitalized by the Veterans’ Administration within the forty-eight contiguous States; but authority under this clause (iii) shall expire on December 31, 1978. (b) Section 601(5) of such title is amended to read as follows: “(5) The term ‘hospital care’ includes— “(A) (i) medical services rendered in the course of the hospitalization of any veteran, and (ii) transportation and incidental expenses for any veteran who is in need of treatment for a service-connected disability or is unable to defray the expense of transportation; “(B) such mental health services, consultation, professional counseling, and training (including (i) necessary expenses for 87 Stat. 180 transportation if unable to defray such expenses; or (ii) necessary’ expenses of transportation and subsistence in the ease of a veteran who is receiving care for a service-connected disability, or in the case of a dependent or survivor of a veteran receiving care under the last-sentence of section 613(b) of this title, under the terms and conditions set forth in section 111 of this title) of the members of the immediate family (including legal guardians) of a veteran or such a dependent or survivor or a veteran, or, in the case of a veteran or such dependent or survivor of a veteran who has no immediate family members (or legal guardian), the person in whose household such veteran, or such a dependent or survivor certifies his intention to live, as may be necessary or appropriate to the effective treatment and rehabilitation of a veteran or such a dependent or a survivor of a veteran; and “(C) (i) medical services rendered in the course of the hospitalization of a dependent or survivor of a veteran receiving care under the last sentence of section 613(b) of this title, and (ii) transportation and incidental expenses for such dependent or survivor of a veteran who is in need of treatment for any injury, disease, or disability and is unable to defray the expense of transportation.”. (c) Section 601(6) of such title is amended by inserting immediately after “treatment,” the following: “such home health services as the Administrator determines to be necessary or appropriate for the effective and economical treatment of a disability of a veteran or a dependent or survivor of a veteran receiving care under the last sentence of section 613(b) of this title”.