Pentagon Blues

Saw this come down the VA Watchdog.org wire from a Military.com article:

Why DoD Likely Will Lose Authority to Rate Disabilities

Congressional action to end the services’ authority to assign disability ratings and put the Department of Veterans Affairs in charge can’t come too soon for retired Army Lt. Col. Michael A. Parker.

Parker, 45, has complained for a couple of years to lawmakers and to the Veterans’ Disability Benefits Commission about lax DoD oversight of the disability rating process and unfair disability decisions across the services.

...

The VDBC uncovered a March 1985 legal opinion from the DoD general counsel that allowed the services, without notifying Congress, to begin to hold down disability ratings. The services were to stop setting disability ratings based on all ailments and injuries found during medical evaluations and to start basing them only conditions that make a member unfit for duty.

The intent, it appears, was to save on retirement and medical costs. If a service discharges a member as unfit with a rating of 20 percent or less, he or she gets only disability severance. A 30 percent or higher rating brings “retiree” status, a lifetime annuity and lifetime military healthcare.

This appears to be a serious problem for thousands of GWOT veterans these days and implementing a working solution for them and future veterans is long overdue.

Among its 113 recommendations are three calling for immediate action to correct disability evaluations and one long-term fix all evaluations to VA. Defense officials or the services should:

-- Reassess past disability ratings set at less than 30 percent for service member separated as unfit to determine if the rating was fair, given disturbing inconsistencies found across services ratings and between ratings awarded by DoD and those routinely raised later by the VA.

-- Adopt a consistent and uniform policy for rating disabilities by requiring the services to adhere to the VA rating schedule.

-- Reconsider a policy that allows discharge of an individual without any disability compensation, as late as eight years into their active duty careers, if found unfit based on medical conditions that likely existed before they entered service. Parker said the services have shifted the burden of proof that a condition didn’t exist prior to service onto some members.

The long-term recommendation is to give VA sole responsibility for rating disabilities. The services would continue to determine fitness for duty but would get out of the disability rating business.

One thing I noticed was blatantly absent in this article was the massive VA claims backlog already giving headaches and heartache to veterans waiting for benefits. How would this affect the backlog? One can only assume that it will only increase the number of claims in backlog and increase the wait times as well. But to what degree? Given that many of these situations would have resulted in a VA claim anyways, would it be a significant jump? People are already demanding more resources be used to fix the current backlog. One hopes that these recommendations will be followed through with the appropriate resources to deal with the increase and current backlogs as well.

Just my 2 cents.