Complaints from veterans and from a high-profile commission that the services routinely were “low-balling” disability ratings for military members found medically unfit spurred Congress last year to take action.
Among other things, it ordered the Department of Defense to create a special board to review disability ratings of 20 percent or less given to members who separated since Sept. 11, 2001. Thousands of veterans had higher ratings and additional benefits at stake from any fresh review.
But the new Physical Disability Board of Review, which began accepting applications last month, isn’t going to do what some in Congress and many veterans hoped that it would. It will not be reassessing ratings for mental and physical conditions from applicants based solely on the more liberal criteria used by raters at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Veterans Administration Schedule for Ratings Disabilities, or VASRD, will only be used to their full effect in reviewing lower disability ratings awarded on or after Jan. 28, 2008.
In reviewing earlier disability rating, back through Sept. 11, 2001, the review board simply will determine if the service branch properly had followed its own guidelines for rating disabilities at the time of a veteran’s separation.
The problem with that, say critics, is that, for some health conditions, service guidelines had watered down or ignored the ratings schedule, creating inequities across services and lower ratings for many members, including those with post-traumatic stress, migraines and other conditions. Still, the board’s legal staff says that is all that the law requires.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Michael Parker, an expert on disability ratings and an advocate for disabled veterans, elicited that agency position with a lengthy letter and detailed questions on the criteria the board will be using on thousands of veterans’ applications.
Parker said he is stunned by the Defense Department’s position. He said it will neutralize what Congress tried to accomplish.
“We’re back to square one,” Parker said. “They are just going to confirm what was already said before.”
It will make application to the board a hollow, perhaps even a harmful exercise for some because a decision by the review board won’t allow for an appeal or reconsideration.
Mike Hayden, a veterans’ benefits expert with the Military Officers Association of America, also is frustrated.
“We thought the intent of this board was to look at these low-balled ratings to see if they need to be elevated,” said Hayden. “They’re just going to perpetuate the same problems.”
In 2007 retired Army Lt. Gen. James Terry Scott, chairman of the Veterans Disability Benefits Commission, drew Congress’s attention to the high proportion of injured veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who were being discharged with disability ratings below 30 percent.
A rating of 10 percent or 20 percent just qualifies a member for a lump sum severance. A rating of 30 percent or higher results in a lifetime annuity, access to the military health care for veteran and family as well as other benefits including discounted shopping on base.
Scott noted that from 2000 through 2006, the Army gave ratings of 30 percent or higher only to 13 percent of medically discharged soldiers. By comparison, the Navy awarded disability retirements to 36 percent. Air Force and Marine Corps numbers fell between those two. But the fiscal year 2008 National Defense Authorization Act mandating creation of a special board to review disability ratings since Sept. 11, 2001 apparently doesn’t specify, as many veterans had assumed, that the board must rely on the ratings schedule, and not just verify that service guidance had been followed.
Defense “is still refusing to follow the law,” said Parker, the disability expert. “Instead, the PDBR will uphold illegal rating decisions, and (Defense) will continue to cheat disabled service members out of legally due disability benefits.”
Review board officials declined comment on short notice referring to the board’s Web site for details: tinyurl.com/aspac7.
To comment, e-mail milupdate@aol.com, write to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111 or go to: militaryupdate.com.
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