Disability system overhaul - Getting Out, Military Retirement - Military Times

Disability system overhaul

In the wake of the outpatient treatment controversy at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington in early 2007 and other issues related to health care for troops returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the disability rating and evaluation systems for service members and veterans are undergoing major changes.

In late 2007, the Defense Department and VA began a one-year test of a new system for handling disability cases. The test is running at three major military treatment facilities and the VA hospital in the Washington, D.C., area and is designed to eliminate the duplicative and often confusing elements of the two separate disability processes currently run by VA and the military.

The new system features a single medical exam and a single disability rating to be issued by VA. A principal goal of the test is to ease service members’ transition to veteran status so they can access VA benefits and compensation.

During the test, both agencies are examining the continuum of care they provide, from the point of injury through rehabilitation to community reintegration. The objectives are to improve the timeliness, effectiveness and transparency by integrating the two separate processes and to improve information provided to service members and their families.

The test program also is looking at enhanced case management methods and seeks to identify ways to improve the flow of information and additional resources to service members and family, so that as soon as a service member in the test program transitions out of the military system, VA is poised to provide him with benefits and compensation.

Defense and VA officials are reviewing the test program as it develops to map out a plan for expanding it to other locations.