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DoD AND VA TO TEST STREAMLINED DISABILITY
RATING
SYSTEM -- DoD soon could be out of the
disability rating
business and using VA to end any unfair
disparities.
For more on the Dole-Shalala Commission
mentioned in the article below, go here...
http://vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/
nfJUL07/nf072607-12.htm
Story here...
http://www.estripes.com/
article.asp?section=104&article=47685
Story below:
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DOD, VA to test streamlined disability plan
By Tom Philpott, Special to Stars and Stripes
After months of top-level negotiations, the departments of Defense and
Veterans Affairs are only weeks away from testing a plan to streamline
and partially merge their disability rating processes.
But as first steps are taken toward what a senior defense official said
will be “remarkable changes” to the method of setting disability
separations and retirements, a blue-ribbon panel has said: Go further.
Much further.
The President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded
Warriors, in releasing its final report Wednesday, recommended getting
“DOD completely out of the disability business” by giving VA sole
responsibility for setting disability ratings and awarding compensation.
Disabled servicemembers would see the current “confusing, parallel
systems of ratings and compensation” replaced by a single, simple, more
generous system.
Other commission recommendations call for:
* A patient-centered recovery plan for each severely injured member.
* Aggressive prevention/treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and
traumatic brain injury.
* Improved support services for families of wounded members.
* Faster transfer of patient information between DOD and VA.
* Shoring up staff at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center until its
closing in 2011.
Former Kansas Republican Sen. Robert Dole, a disabled veteran of World
War II, and Donna Shalala, secretary of the Department of Health and
Human Services during the Clinton administration, chaired the
nine-member panel. Its recommendation to “completely restructure the
disability determination and compensation system” would shrink the
military’s role to determining whether members remain fit for duty.
Those found to be unfit during a “single, comprehensive, standardized
medical examination” administered by DOD would be separated with a
lifetime annuity tied to rank and years of service. VA then would
determine disability ratings and level of disability payment, which
would be paid in addition to military annuity. This approach would
secure full “concurrent receipt” of military retirement and VA
disability compensation.
The Dole-Shalala report says VA disability payments should have three
components: transition money to help with the return to civilian life,
earning-loss pay to make up for reduced future earnings and
quality-of-life pay “to compensate for permanent losses of various
kinds.”
Disabled vets would continue to qualify for VA health care. But any
servicemember found unfit for duty from combat-related injuries also
would be eligible for lifetime Tricare coverage. Put simply, the
commission said, DOD should focus on keeping a fit force and
“acknowledge” years of service while the VA should rate and compensate
service-connected disabilities.
The day the commission released its report, the Senate passed the
Dignified Treatment of Wounded Warriors Act, which has more modest
provisions to streamline the VA and DOD disability process, with special
focus on ending rating disparities between services and between DOD and
VA. It would require the services to use VA standards for rating
disabilities and to rate every disability affecting fitness for duty,
not just a single disqualifying condition as is routine for some service
branches. Any disability rating awarded since Sept. 11, 2001, that
resulted in payment of lump sum severance rather than a disability
retirement would be reviewed.
The Senate bill also would require that services use the same statutory
presumptions VA uses in determining if a disability is
service-connected. A service no longer could presume that some
conditions are not service-connected if the member hasn’t been in at
least eight years. This threshold would be lowered to six months’ active
duty, barring compelling evidence that the disabling condition existed
before the member entered service.
The Senate also would raise minimum severance payments to a year’s worth
of basic pay for disabilities incurred in a combat zone or from combat
operations, and to six months’ basic pay for other disabilities.
Currently, a young recruit wounded in war can get as little as three
months’ basic pay.
Finally, the bill would mandate pilot programs to test the viability of
having the VA assess disability levels before members leave service.
Anticipating these changes, senior defense and service leaders have been
preparing with VA counterparts to a test a partial merger of their
processes.
William Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel
policy, said that under the pilot program, planned for D.C. area
military hospitals, VA alone will conduct a single, comprehensive
physical of injured or ailing servicemembers while they are still on
active duty. VA then will rate all physical and mental conditions found.
The services will determine what conditions, if any, make the member
unfit for duty and award disability severance pay or disability
retirement based on all “unfitting” conditions. A combined rating of 30
percent for such conditions will continue to be the service threshold
for awarding disability retirement, which comes with lifetime
eligibility for Tricare and other retiree privileges. VA still will set
its level of disability and compensation based on all service-connected
conditions found.
Carr said these changes to the disability process will make the systems
more simple and transparent. The test will begin as a paper exercise in
August to find problems and set “protocols,” he said. Before November,
the new ratings process could be operating on a test basis in the D.C.
area.
This plan won’t get DOD out of the “disability business” entirely, as
recommended by Dole-Shalala, Carr said. But DOD soon could be out of the
“disability rating” business and using VA to end any unfair disparities.
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Larry Scott --
