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Bill offers private TBI treatment, for some

An Indiana lawmaker is claiming victory for getting a provision included in the 2008 defense authorization bill that could make it possible for troops and veterans with traumatic brain injury to be treated by private-sector specialists.

However, the bill does not guarantee that option, said veterans’ advocate Meredith Beck of the nonprofit Wounded Warriors Project.

The provision allows the Defense Department to determine if private care is warranted by medical necessity, which leaves room for interpretation.

“We do not know how this may or may not be used,” said Beck, national legislative director of the group.

Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., who led the fight in the House of Representatives this year to give severely brain-injured combat veterans more access to private treatment, said the provision is “a victory for the thousands of brave Americans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and returned home to a medical system that was not prepared to provide the best care for severe brain injuries.”

The House approved the bill Wednesday night and the Senate followed suit today, sending it to the White House for President Bush to sign it into law.

Donnelly said the bill “makes clear to both the military and our wounded warriors that not only should the option of private care for TBI be continued, but it should also be expanded.”

The military health care system has covered some rehabilitative care at private facilities for active-duty service members, but the Department of Veterans Affairs does not, which means a service member receiving private treatment could no longer get it after leaving the military.

To try to resolve this discrepancy, the bill authorizes — but does not require — the Defense Department to provide veterans the same medical benefits they were receiving on active duty.

In their report accompanying the bill, lawmakers said the provision covers instances when medical and dental care for a severe injury or illness “is not reasonably available from the VA.”

The intent, the report says, is to “ensure that severely wounded or ill service members who are medically retired experience no gap in health care coverage because of the lack of reasonably available capacity of the Veterans Health Administration or any limitation in current health care benefits required by the member.”

The report said senior Pentagon officials “have acknowledged that the health care benefit for service members on active duty includes limited health care benefits that are not available to service members in a retired status.”

“This has created an incentive for some seriously wounded service members to remain on active duty solely for the increased medical benefit.”

DISCUSS: Victory ... or more red tape?