1. Short title This Act may be cited as the TRICARE ECHO Improvement Act . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) Active duty members of the uniformed services encounter difficulties accessing Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) waivers under Medicaid for the dependents of such members who have intellectual or developmental disabilities. (2) State residency requirements create barriers to accessing such benefits for military families who move across State lines and are required to reenroll with each permanent change of station. (3) Enrollment caps for such waivers create additional barriers, and often result in waiting lists due to the demand for such waivers, including, in 2017, an average 30-month wait time. (4) The Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission concluded that “access to HCBS waiver benefits is a substantial issue for military families … Service members are required to re-apply for benefits each time they move to a new state. Many Service members encounter waiting lists that exceed their time assigned to a location.”. (5) In 2001, the TRICARE Extended Care Health Option program ( ECHO program ) was established as an alternative to HCBS waivers for military families. The ECHO program provides additional medical and non-medical services not covered by TRICARE to eligible military dependents with special needs, for the purpose of assisting in the reduction of the disabling effects of the qualifying condition of the dependent. (6) The Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission concluded that, although ECHO was created as an alternative to HCBS waiver benefits, “ECHO benefits, as currently implemented, are not robust enough to replace state waiver programs when those programs are inaccessible.” (7) Although the purpose of the ECHO program is to provide supplemental services to dependents with special needs, a 2014 study conducted by the Manpower Data Center of the Department of Defense found that only 37 percent of military families that have a child