http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/604044p.pdf

Above is the link for the new DoD Disability Review Board that will review disability cases since 9-11 that resulted in separation with a rating of less than 30%.

Mike

Looks like there finally moving on this. Any word on when they will start reviewing cases?

"Cases may be considered and presented to the PDBR upon the written request of a Service member meeting the qualifications of section 2 of this enclosure, or by their surviving spouse, next of kin, or legal representative. The PDBR may, upon its own motion, review the findings and decisions of the PEB with respect to a covered individual."

"The Military Departments shall obtain records and other information required for review of cases by the PDBR."

In the first paragraph it sounds like the individual needs to request a review an the second paragraph it sounds like the military will provide the info.

"The Military Department concerned shall afford a covered individual who petitions the PDBR not less than 2 weeks from notice of pending review to provide documentary evidence outside DoD possession."

How does the individual petition the board? Or is this an automatic process?

Thanks

Apparently we have to wait for the Air Force as the executive agent for the board to write more instructions.

Mike

I am glad the DOD has finally moved forward on this process as specified by our Legislators. However there is still a loophole that needs to be closed. This is the process in which service members are found "Fit" by the PEB but the members is then administratively discharged because their medical condition that went to the PEB prohibits them from being world wide assignable. This appears to be most common in the Navy.

Here is the Navy IG's interpretation of the Fit for duty definition.

http://www.ig.navy.mil/Complaints/Complaints%20%20(Fit%20for%20Duty).htm

quote:

found "Fit" by the PEB but the members is then administratively discharged because their medical condition that went to the PEB prohibits them from being world wide assignable. This appears to be most common in the Navy.

There are extreme limitations imposed under Title 10USC for the Branches of Service for "Administrative Discharges" Such as time in service places prohibitions, your EER or OER's and many more. While it may "appear" to be the way of the branch of service as you perceive it to be. It is in fact constrictive in nature. My iota on this issue is this. Before you sign a PEB or other potentially career ending documents, READ them carefully, and if need be, or when in doubt, take it to a JAG office for interpretation" Also, keep in mind that you can disagree with PEB findings, wording, allowing you to insure either a smooth and relatively content transition out of the service or conversely a smooth transition back into duty status.
Freddy

In the following passage, the author should have said "the Medical Evaluation Board is required to include all current medical conditions.

Parker raised a second concern: The Physical Evaluation Board is required to include all current medical conditions, but the Walter Reed scandal showed that often, medical records were lost or not included in board packets. If that happens, the Physical Evaluation Board doesn’t get a chance to rate for all conditions, but those cases would not be covered by the new board.

Mike


Board to reassess some disability ratings

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jul 2, 2008 14:49:53 EDT

Service members given a disability rating of 20 percent or lower during their medical evaluation boards since Sept. 11, 2001, may have their cases reviewed by a new Defense Department board.
A rating of 30 percent or higher means lifetime health benefits, as well as medical retirement pay based on the rating, years served and rank when retired.
The Physical Disability Board of Review was mandated by the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act after several investigations — including an analysis of five years’ worth of Defense Department budget records by Military Times — showed discrepancies across the services in average amounts of disability benefits awarded.
“The purpose of the [board] shall be to reassess the accuracy and fairness of the combined disability ratings assigned service members who were discharged as unfit for continued military service,” wrote David S.C. Chu, undersecretary for personnel and readiness, in a memo dated June 27. “The [board] shall operate in a spirit of transparency and accountability, and shall impartially readjudicate cases upon which review is requested or undertaken on its own motion.”
The Air Force is to recommend someone to lead the board immediately, and then the other services will determine who will represent them on the board. According to the legislation, the new board was supposed to be in place by the end of April.
One sentence of the new directive already has veterans service organization representatives concerned: “Only the medical condition(s) determined to be specifically unfitting for continued military service, as previously determined by the Military Department [physical evaluation board], will be subject to review by the [board].” The legislation makes no such limitations.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Mike Parker, who has worked as an advocate for service members going through the physical evaluation board process, said there are at least two categories of veterans who could be hurt by this limitation.
He gave an example of a sergeant who was originally sent to the medical evaluation board because of a congenital cornea condition that caused his vision to be distorted. According to the surgeon general of the Army’s policy, soldiers may not wear hard contact lenses to the field, as this soldier was required by his doctor to do. But when he went to the board, he was found fit for his cornea condition, which would have brought him a rating of at least 30 percent, and found unfit for two other lesser conditions and given a total rating of 10 percent.
“They’ve been cherry-picking which unfitting condition to use,” Parker said. The new board would not be allowed to make sure the ‘fit’ determination for the soldier’s cornea problem was fair.
Parker raised a second concern: The Physical Evaluation Board is required to include all current medical conditions, but the Walter Reed scandal showed that often, medical records were lost or not included in board packets. If that happens, the Physical Evaluation Board doesn’t get a chance to rate for all conditions, but those cases would not be covered by the new board.
“Conditions that were not identified as unfitting are not within the scope of this board,” Pentagon Spokesman Lt. Col. Les’ Melnyk said in an e-mail. “A determination of unfitting is generally unique to the demands of the service member’s military department. These decisions are best made by the military departments.”
However, he said conditions that were not rated because they were determined to be pre-existing, as was the case of thousands of service members discharged with no benefits for personality disorders, would be eligible for review by the new board.
Parker said the new board needs to address all situations that can lead to a combined disability rating of less than 30 percent — otherwise, service members may have to take their cases to several boards to try to correct specific errors in their cases.
“If the new board does not address all of these factors, I fear a service member may have to spend years going to multiple review boards to fix all the issues that led to an erroneous rating,” Parker said, which is exactly the kind of bureaucratic quagmire the Wounded Warrior legislation sought to correct.
Melnyk said a different board should, in fact, look at those other issues.
“Service members may appeal those issues to the Military Department Board of Corrections for Military Records or the Discharge Review Boards,” he said.
But that could also cause a problem: After they receive a recommendation from the new review board, service members will not be eligible for review by the Board for the Correction of Military Records, according to Chu’s directive and the legislation.

When I received my PEB from the Navy in 1977, they only included one disability. I had 4 10% disabilities, but they would only use one for the rating. I was told that is how the Military ratings work. The VA rated me for all 4.

Dave_M is correct. I assume that the rating they used was the highest qualifier and the others are not formulated together for a single rating. Supposedly, the 'IDEA" was to the benefit of the soldier. Under 30% most soldiers would take the lump sum anyway,mainly because no one was there to advise them of the VA or their rights, Like me (Had no clue what the VA's role was in the scheme of things). 30 and over you retired from the Service. Me, I was so P**sed off that I refused anything, everything, demanded a formal hearing, ended up doing myself the greatest favor (UNKNOWINGLY) and retired at 100=50% and the VA next day rated me at 100, don't remember how the VA suddenly showed on the radar screen, but anyway, I did have a seamless transition out of service. My luck. For thousands, my heart aches for I know that the transition is damn hard and the monetary strain breaks many families, the emotional toll caused by sudden stop or severe drop in income is unbearable. I have seen many a tear of sorrow and pain. I hope they DO implement the combined ratings and tally up the %, thus ensuring all would be veterans a well deserved fair rating and transition.
Freddy

quote:

DoD Disability Review Board

Has it started yet?

Is there an address or process for applying yet?


July 01, 2008
American Forces Press Service|by Donna Miles

WASHINGTON – Former servicemembers who disagree with the disability ratings they received when they were discharged as unfit for military duty can now apply to have those ratings reviewed by a new Physical Disability Board of Review.

The Defense Department announced formation of the new board yesterday to reassess the accuracy and fairness of disability ratings assigned to discharged troops, Sam Retherford, the Pentagon’s deputy director of officer personnel management, told American Forces Press Service.

Several task forces and studies cited inconsistencies in the way the military departments assigned disability ratings for similar conditions, he said. The Army tended to assign the lowest ratings, according to the studies.

“The findings were enough to warrant the creation of a Physical Disability Board of Review,” Retherford said.

The new board could potentially affect almost half the 20,000 servicemembers processed through the Disability Evaluation System each year. Of these, about 10 percent have combat- or training-related injuries, Retherford said.

The board would, on request, review the cases involving a combined disability rating of 20 percent or less.

Disability ratings have a significant financial impact, determining if the servicemember qualifies for retired pay and military benefits such as health care and base privileges for life, or a one-time severance pay with no additional benefits.

Those who receive 30 percent or higher disability ratings -- 1,296 during fiscal 2007 -- are medically retired. In addition, more than 4,200 servicemembers were put on a temporary disability retired list last year, a status they can retain for up to five years.

If the combined rating is 20 percent or lower, troops typically discharged with severance as unfit for duty, Retherford explained. During fiscal 2007, almost 4,000 servicemembers processed through the Disability Evaluation System were returned to duty.

Of those separated as no longer fit for duty, more than 9,200 received a severance, Retherford said. Another 1,150 did not receive a severance, typically because their disabilities were due to misconduct or pre-service conditions.

Not all were happy with their disability rating findings. About 10 percent appealed their cases, Retherford said.

Now, under the Physical Disability Board of Review, troops will have one additional method of recourse. Retherford said he anticipates the board will review about 900 cases per year, all by request.

Former servicemembers separated from the military after Sept. 11, 2001, must apply to have their case reviewed, Retherford said. The Defense Department plans to launch an awareness campaign to ensure people who qualify for a records review know about the new board and how to apply.

The Defense Department designated the Air Force to operate and manage the new board, but it will include representatives from each military department, Retherford said. Board members will include line officers as well as medical experts, who will review documentary evidence. No former servicemember will appear in person before the board.

The board can recommend that the appropriate service secretary increase a disability rating, uphold the previous finding, or issue a disability rating when the previous board did not assign one, Retherford said. However, the board cannot recommend a lower rating.

Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness David S. C. Chu called the board an important step in ensuring affected servicemembers are treated fairly. “The PDBR has no greater obligation to our wounded, ill and injured servicemembers and former servicemembers than to offer fair and equitable recommendations pertaining to the assignment of disability ratings,” he said.

Nothing yet.

Mike

Has anyone even heard anything on this?

Thanks

Disabled soldiers shoulder the burdens of bureaucracy
By Fred Joyce
Article Launched: 09/19/2008 12:30:00 AM MDT

As a veteran of infantry combat in Vietnam, I do indeed find the burden being shouldered by today's soldiers and Marines to be unprecedented.

Official British and American studies at the end of World War II concluded that the average male infantryman was emotionally ineffective well before the end of year in combat, if he managed to avoid death, serious injury or illness, in that amount of time.

I retired from the United States Army in February 2007, after almost 37 years of service. My last assignment was with the Army Physical Disability Agency, sitting as a voting member on Physical Evaluation Boards.

At the end of 2006, Forces Command, which supervises deployments from Fort Carson and other locations was unhappy with the agency.

Soldiers with medical conditions and several years of service were arguing at our boards to be found fit for continued service, rather than face the prospect of medical separation before they qualified for retirement benefits.

We often returned these soldiers to their units, by the rules we then had, because their conditions did not preclude them from performing some meaningful duty.

However, the decision whether or not to deploy these soldiers was left in the hands of those unit commanders, by Army policy.

This policy also encourages those soldiers to take their chances during further deployments rather than see their careers ended before they qualify for retirement benefits, because normally, one medical condition is not severe enough to meet the 30% rate which qualifies for medical retirement instead of just disqualification for further active service.

So Forces Command has had to continue to struggle with the significant population of disabled soldiers at their man installations. So much so, that the structure of the Warrior Transition Units has been overwhelmed.

As further proof that the rules that we conducted the Army Physical Evaluation Boards under were too stringent, thus low balling percent of disability ratings in most cases, the Department Of Defense is trying to get the VA to be the only arbiter of percent of disability, just as Forces Command wanted the Dept Of The Army to determine deployability.

Further, it has been announced in the past month that the Air Force will establish a DOD level Physical Evaluation Board of Review for all post 9-11 medical separations that did not meeet the 30% criteria for medical retirement.

Even though the casualty rate has been reduces, the burden on injured soldiers and Marines to work with the medical, service and VA bureaucracies to resolve their long term status will continue to be long and costly one.

I called the wounded warrior hotline to see if theirs any update on the DoD Disability Review Board. They said they have no knowledge of it and gave me the 800-827-1000 to the VA. I called the VA and they said to call the WWH or the Army....?

Confusing....