The pilot for a new Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs disability-evaluation system set to expand from five to 22 military bases by May does much of what its proponents hoped it would.
It allows more injured or ill service members to win higher disability ratings, to see payments start faster and, through greater transparency in the process, to feel they have been treated more fairly by government.
But enough kinks and challenges have been discovered by the pilot project to persuade its designers in the two departments not to expand so quickly that the program outpaces the additional staff that needs to be hired and trained, particularly at the largest military bases.
Sam Retherford of Defense has overseen the phase-in of this landmark disability reform, starting in November 2007 in the Washington, D.C., area, including Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Medical Center. He said nearly 900 disabled service members have been through the test program. As many as 700 a month will process through the expanded one.
The centerpiece of the project is to have the agencies work together to diagnose, rate and compensate disabled members.
The aim is to end the wasteful, time-consuming and confusing practice of separate evaluations, one before and one after discharge or retirement. Under the pilot, the VA conducts the single, comprehensive physical examination while members are on active duty and prepares a single disability evaluation used by each department.
The military service uses the findings to determine fitness for duty. Those members found unfit are separated or retired. But the service continues to base its decision and disability rating only on medical conditions that make the member unfit for duty.
In a report to Congress on the pilot program, Defense and VA officials last month said the “initial reviews … are favorable,” citing improved outcomes on ratings, timeliness and the transparency of the process.
The program will expand to 17 bases outside the D.C. area over the next five months. the Naval Medical Center in Bremerton is the only one in the Puget Sound area.
The project imposes a heavy document workload on facilities and on case managers. But a consensus among all involved affirms “this is a good thing,” Retherford said.
Randy Reese, national service director for Disabled American Veterans, both praised and criticized the pilot. To have the VA conduct physicals and awarding ratings for Defense is “a marriage made in heaven,” he said. “The results of the decisions are better. They are definitely more consistent,” Reese said, and ratings awards before discharge have “definitely improved.”
Also Veterans Affairs compensation begins immediately after discharge, eliminating a huge hassle and long waits for disabled veterans to receive first payments.
The program doesn’t address a need that disabled members have for advocacy counseling, either by trained military officers or by veterans organizations, Reese said.
It can provide information, but that doesn’t take the place of an advocate.
Army Sgt. 1st Class James Babin of Arlington, Va., went through the pilot after recovering from surgery last February for a leg injury first sustained in combat in 2003. Babin said he didn’t get his ratings — a combined 30 percent for leg and head injuries from the VA or 20 percent from Army — until late October. Babin, 31, said he was surprised that it took eight months.
He was more disappointed that documents were left out of the packet evaluated by the VA that would likely have resulted in a better rating. The mistake was caught by an adviser at Walter Reed, and the person responsible was reprimanded. Babin didn’t find her “very knowledgeable or very useful in this process,” reinforcing Reese’s worry of a counseling gap in the pilot program.
The issue of lost compensation by administrative error was voided in Babin’s case when the Army approved his request to stay on activity duty. A medic, he will retrain to a more sedentary specialty such as intelligence analyst.
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