EL PASO, Texas -- A new piece of legislation is aimed at evaluating the mental health of soldiers as they return from war.

The National Defense Authorization Act calls for a soldiers to be evaluated face-to-face by a medical professional between 90 and 180 days after they return from deployment to be evaluated for post traumatic stress disorder.

KFOX spoke with New Mexico Rep. Harry Teague who said he is happy the Department of Defense is taking a step in the right direction to help soldiers.

"You know, this is a good starting point. We may need to add to it, we may need to extend the time frame, a lot of things, but I think it’s a very good step," said Teague.

The legislation will have an impact locally. Fort Bliss will need to hire more medical professionals to keep up with the face-to-face screenings.

Teague said Fort Bliss faces a special challenge in providing those mental health evaluations because so many of the post's soldiers get deployed to Iraq.

The congressman also met with leaders at White Sands Missile Range on the same topic.