Pentagon board to review disability ratings

[cec]

Pentagon board to review disability ratings




By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jul 1, 2008 6:38:54 EDT
Service members given a disability rating of 20 percent or lower during their medical evaluation boards since Sept. 11, 2001, may have their cases reviewed by a new Defense Department board.
The Physical Disability Board of Review was mandated by the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act after several investigations — including an analysis of five years’ worth of Defense Department budget records by Military Times — showed discrepancies across the services in average amounts of disability benefits awarded. For example, Military Times found enlisted airmen averaged much higher monthly disability payments — $926 — than did enlisted Marines at $770 a month. And all the services tended to award more officers than enlisted personnel ratings of 50 percent or higher.

“The purpose of the [board] shall be to reassess the accuracy and fairness of the combined disability ratings assigned service members who were discharged as unfit for continued military service,” wrote David S.C. Chu, undersecretary for personnel and readiness, in a memo dated June 27. “The [board] shall operate in a spirit of transparency and accountability, and shall impartially readjudicate cases upon which review is requested or undertaken on its own motion.”
The new policy is effective immediately. According to the 2008 authorization act, the board was supposed to be set up by the end of April.
One sentence of the new directive already has veterans service organization representatives concerned: “Only the medical condition(s) determined to be specifically unfitting for continued military service, as previously determined by the Military Department [physical evaluation board], will be subject to review by the [board].”
Retired Army Lt. Col. Mike Parker, who has worked as an advocate for service members going through the physical evaluation board process, said that in the past, a person might have been looked at for three conditions. For example, the first condition, perhaps asthma, might be an unfitting condition that would rate at 10 percent for retirement purposes. The second, perhaps for sleep apnea, might be unfitting but rated at zero percent. The third, perhaps diabetes, could be found to be unfitting but pre-existing, so the service member would not be eligible for benefits. That last condition might be the one the service member was discharged for, even though the regulations state service members should be rated for all unfitting conditions. Parker said that’s exactly the kind of unfair treatment the new board was intended to correct.
“They’ve been cherry-picking which unfitting condition to use,” Parker said. According to Chu’s directive, the board may still only look at that one condition rather than the three that should have been rated in the first place, Parker said. In some cases, an injury, such as the thousands of traumatic brain injuries that went undiagnosed in the first few years of the war in Iraq, may not have been properly diagnosed in time to be included in a medical retirement board.
The new board will be run by the Air Force, which has been ordered to nominate someone to lead the program as well as set up guidance as to how it will be run. Any service member who was not found eligible for medical retirement, including lifetime medical benefits, but who was still separated from the military may have his or her case reviewed. However, after they receive a recommendation from the new review board, service members will not be eligible for review by the Board for the Correction of Military Records, according to the Defense Department. Service members will have to sign a statement saying they understand they lose that right.
The board also has the option to review cases without a service member asking, though they must have the permission of that service member.
Service members should apply for the review through their own military branch, but the Air Force will provide guidance about the board itself. The different branches will have to provide funding to the Air Force to review cases for their service members.
The services will also “determine the information required for review” by the board, including complete medical records, rating determinations and new evidence not previously included. The board will include members from all services, and members reviewing a particular case may not have been involved during the initial adjudication of that case.
“The [Physical Disability Board of Review] has no greater obligation to our wounded, ill and injured service members and former service members than to offer fair and equitable recommendations pertaining to the assignment of disability ratings,” Chu said in a Defense Department release.



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[Woodmonkey]

“The [Physical Disability Board of Review] has no greater obligation to our wounded, ill and injured service members and former service members than to offer fair and equitable recommendations pertaining to the assignment of disability ratings,” Chu said in a Defense Department release.

I agree.