42 U.S.C. § 280g–4a — Understanding sexual assault care in health systems

(a) Purpose: This section aims to identify ways to improve health care delivery systems that provide forensic examinations to sexual assault survivors. (b) Grants: The Secretary must award grants to States and Indian Tribes to develop and run State and Tribal surveys identifying (1) the availability of, and patient access to, medical forensic examinations; (2) the training level of providers who perform them; (3) which hospitals or clinics offer them, and whether coverage is full-time, part-time, or on-call; (4) barriers to getting medical forensic examinations through sexual assault care; (5) billing and reimbursement practices for them; (6) State and Tribal requirements, minimum standards, and protocols for training sexual assault forensic examiners and other involved personnel; (7) the availability, frequency, and providers of examiner training, the State's or Tribe's role in it, and continuing-education processes; and (8) dedicated federal and State funding available for examiner training. (c) Eligibility: To get a grant, a State or Indian Tribe must apply through a competitive process the Secretary sets. (d) Public dissemination and campaign: (1) The Secretary must publish survey results on the HHS website every two years. (2) A grantee State or Tribe must (A) make its survey findings public, including a map of providers who perform medical forensic examinations, based on findings under subsection (b)(3); (B) use the findings to build a strategic action plan to increase trained examiners and boost survivor access, and to create policies supporting that access; and (C) use the findings to develop and run a public awareness campaign including (i) an online toolkit describing how and where survivors can get assistance and care, including forensic examinations; (ii) a model standard response protocol for providers when a sexual assault patient arrives; (iii) a model sexual assault response team protocol coordinating hospitals, emergency departments, hospital administration, local rape crisis programs, law enforcement, prosecutors, and other agencies and stakeholders, for survivor-centered care; and (iv) notice of applicable laws that prohibit charging or billing survivors for sexual-assault-related care and services. (e) Authorization of appropriations: Congress may spend $7,000,000 each year from 2023 through 2027.