What the AIR CARE for Vets Act actually does
On July 14, 2026, Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) and Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) introduced the Advanced Imaging for Respiratory Care, Assessment and Research Excellence for Vets Act — the AIR CARE for Vets Act, H.R. 9666. It was referred the same day to the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and was later covered by Radiology Business.
The bill directs the Department of Veterans Affairs to run a five-year pilot program that leases "a four-dimensional functional lung imaging software product that has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to evaluate lung function" for veterans receiving care at VA facilities. Congress authorized $5 million for each of fiscal years 2027 through 2031 — $25 million total — and requires the VA Secretary to report the pilot's effectiveness back to Congress. That is a direct line-item appropriation to buy a defined category of FDA-cleared imaging software, not a reimbursement-code change or a research grant.
The bill's definition currently points to one product: 4DMedical's XV LVAS and CT LVAS software, which received FDA clearance in 2020 and November 2023, respectively. CT LVAS analyzes an existing CT scan and overlays color-coded, quantified regional ventilation data on top of it — adding a functional read to a structural one, without new capital equipment. The bill's language is written around a product category rather than naming a vendor, so other FDA-cleared entrants in the same category could qualify.
Why lung imaging, and why veterans
The bill targets veterans dealing with respiratory illness linked to burn pit smoke exposure during service in Iraq and Afghanistan — conditions that include COPD, asthma, and lung cancer. According to the sponsors' joint press release, diagnosing these conditions today is limited by standard whole-lung testing procedures, "which can be less sensitive to changes in lung function seen in early disease or when abnormalities are limited to a specific region." The pitch for 4D functional lung imaging is that it can flag localized or early functional decline that a normal-looking structural scan or a whole-lung spirometry number can miss.
Burn Pits 360 co-founder and retired Army Captain Le Roy Torres, a longtime advocate for veterans with toxic-exposure illness, framed the stakes bluntly in a July 15, 2026 statement: "Being believed is not a privilege, it is a right." That is the political case for the bill. The more interesting case, for anyone watching imaging AI policy, is the funding mechanism itself.
The precedent that matters beyond lung imaging
Imaging AI vendors have spent years pushing on two existing federal reimbursement levers: CMS's New Technology Add-on Payment (NTAP) for hospitals, and a proposed Medicare payment pathway for AI-enabled devices. H.R. 9666 is a third, different lever — Congress simply appropriating money for an agency to buy a defined class of FDA-cleared software for a specific patient population, rather than adjusting a payment code and waiting for utilization to catch up.
| Funding mechanism | How it works | Status |
|---|---|---|
| CMS New Technology Add-on Payment (NTAP) | Hospitals get a temporary per-case add-on payment for qualifying new technology, including some AI-associated devices, on top of the standard DRG payment. | Existing pathway; uptake has been uneven across sites |
| Health Tech Investment Act (H.R. 6197 / S. 1399) | Would create a dedicated Medicare payment pathway and new ambulatory payment classification for FDA-cleared or approved AI-enabled devices, with five years of cost-based reimbursement. | H.R. 6197 introduced Nov. 2025, S. 1399 introduced Apr. 2025; not yet enacted |
| AIR CARE for Vets Act (H.R. 9666) | Direct congressional appropriation for the VA to lease a defined category of FDA-cleared software for a named population — no billing-code change required. | Introduced July 14, 2026; referred to committee |
None of this is a signal that Congress is about to fund AI CT reporting software directly. The scope here is narrow: one federal payer, one veteran population, one FDA-cleared product category. But it establishes that lawmakers are willing to attach real appropriated dollars — not just a payment-code tweak — to a specific FDA-cleared imaging AI product when there's a clear patient population and a credible clinical story. That is a data point worth logging for anyone tracking how reimbursement and procurement support for AI-assisted imaging tools could broaden over the next few budget cycles. It sits alongside, not instead of, the access questions raised by existing add-on payment programs — see our earlier look at who actually gets radiology AI under current reimbursement design.
The capacity math nobody's pricing into this bill
Every veteran added to a lung-imaging screening pipeline generates a study that still needs to be read by a radiologist. CT LVAS runs on top of an existing CT scan, and a positive or ambiguous functional finding will typically prompt follow-up imaging. That additional CT volume lands on a system that is already stretched: a VA Office of Inspector General report released February 19, 2026 found that 13 of 15 reviewed VA facilities lacked essential call-tracking data for scheduling care, with at least 338,000 untracked calls tied to radiology clinics alone, and veterans reporting delays scheduling time-sensitive scans.
That strain isn't unique to the VA. Nationally, the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute projects CT volume will grow roughly 25% by 2055, while radiologist attrition rates have more than doubled since 2014, from about 1.1% to 2.5% annually. A bill that expands screening for a new veteran population — however well-intentioned — adds reads to that pipeline without adding radiologists to read them. Funding the imaging step without funding the reporting step is the gap AI-assisted CT reporting is built to close.
Where xAID fits
xAID isn't a functional lung-imaging tool and doesn't compete with the product category this bill describes. The relevant parallel is upstream of the scan: as federal dollars start flowing toward more FDA-cleared imaging AI — whether through direct appropriations like this one, add-on payments, or a future Medicare AI pathway — the studies those programs generate still need a structured, comprehensive report. xAID's foundation-model reports are reviewed in-house before delivery, arriving ready-to-sign so the client's reading radiologist can sign off rather than dictate from scratch — the same read-capacity problem this bill's downstream CT volume runs straight into.
Frequently asked questions
What is the AIR CARE for Vets Act?
The AIR CARE for Vets Act (H.R. 9666) is a bipartisan bill introduced July 14, 2026 by Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) and Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH). It would direct the Department of Veterans Affairs to run a five-year pilot program using FDA-cleared four-dimensional functional lung-imaging software to help identify respiratory disorders and lung disease in veterans, with $5 million authorized annually from fiscal year 2027 through 2031, for $25 million total.
Is there an FDA-approved AI product for radiology already tied to this bill?
The bill's definition of eligible software — FDA-cleared, four-dimensional functional lung-imaging technology — currently points to 4DMedical's XV LVAS and CT LVAS software. XV LVAS received FDA clearance in 2020 and CT LVAS, which analyzes standard CT scans for regional lung ventilation, received FDA clearance in November 2023. The bill's language is product-defined but not a sole-source mandate.
Why does a veterans’ lung-imaging bill matter for AI CT reporting?
It is a direct congressional appropriation to lease a specific FDA-cleared imaging software product for a defined patient population — a funding mechanism distinct from existing pathways like CMS's New Technology Add-on Payment or the proposed Health Tech Investment Act. It shows lawmakers are willing to put line-item federal dollars behind FDA-cleared imaging AI, which is a data point for how reimbursement momentum for AI-assisted CT reporting could build over time, even though the underlying product here is a narrow functional-lung tool, not general CT reporting AI.
Does more imaging AI funding mean more work for radiologists?
Yes, in the near term. Every veteran scanned under an expanded lung-imaging pilot generates a study that still needs a radiologist read, at a time when a VA watchdog report (released February 19, 2026) already found major gaps in how VA facilities track radiology scheduling and call data. Funding bills that expand screening add volume to a system that is already strained, which is part of why AI-assisted reporting tools are being evaluated alongside AI-assisted imaging tools.
Source: Radiology Business; bill text and status via govinfo.gov (H.R. 9666); sponsor statement via Rep. Chris Pappas's office; FDA clearance via PR Newswire; advocate statement via Radiology Business; Health Tech Investment Act detail via MedTech Dive; VA access findings via Radiology Business; radiologist workforce data via ACR Bulletin / Neiman Health Policy Institute. Figures are rounded as reported.