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GAO report sums up disability system woes

After years of research delving into the military and Veterans Affairs Department disability rating process, the Government Accountability Office summed up its findings in a report released Tuesday:

• The military needs to determine if its timeliness goals are appropriate.

• Medical and physical evaluation board staffs must be adequately trained.

• The military needs to track and report on how benefits are rated.

• The military needs to make sure the decisions are timely, consistent and fair.

None of the recommendations are new, but the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors, headed by former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, asked for a briefing on the reports done by the GAO on this issue over the past few years. The commission was briefed in April.

In March 2006, for example, the GAO released a report that showed reservists and National Guard soldiers were more likely to receive lower ratings and to take longer to make their way through the disability evaluation system. Counselors, lawyers and physicians did not receive sufficient training, and the system was understaffed, the report found.

The report also said the VA took an average of 127 days to process an initial claim, and an average of 657 days to process an appeal. Part of the timeliness problem, the GAO found, was that it can take up to one year for the U.S. Army and Joint Services Records Research Center to release medical records to the VA.

The GAO recommended that the VA:

• Implement a quality review program to check the accuracy of service records.

• Work on an electronic military record database rather than go through the Joint Services Records Research Center.

• Assess how to make the claims process easier and more standardized.

• Periodically update the ratings schedule for disabilities.

• Review the disability and pension program to see if more staff or other physical resources are needed, and to consolidate processes where possible.

• Make the budget transparent so it’s easier to see where resources are being used and where more may be needed.

The commission headed by Dole and Shalala is one of several seeking to overhaul both the VA and Defense Department disability retirement processes after a series of Military Times and Washington Post reports showed wounded service members were being held up by red tape at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other facilities as they waited for benefits decisions, as well as Military Times reports showing that officers, airmen and sailors receive, on average, higher disability ratings than enlisted soldiers and Marines — the people who take the brunt of the wounds in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.