VA, DoD have tried one physical exam before

VA, DoD have tried one physical exam before
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Nov 9, 2007 22:20:17 EST

If something looks familiar in the announcement of an agreement between the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs for a single physical exam for injured service members transitioning to civilian life, that’s because the idea has been tried before.

In what VA officials said Wednesday was a “landmark agreement,” acting VA Secretary Gordon Mansfield and Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness David S.C. Chu approved a plan promising a single physical examination that will be accepted by both VA and the Defense Department, rather than the two required now.

The agreement orders a pilot program in the Washington area, under which a single physical exam would be used to determine if a person is fit to continue military service and, for those found unfit, would rate their disability to determine how much they receive in monthly veterans disability compensation.

In Wednesday’s announcement, Mansfield said the agreement “will make it easier for these heroes to go back to their homes, with the key questions about their eligibility for VA compensation already decided.”

But the idea is hardly new —the VA and Pentagon reached similar agreements in both 1998 and 2004.

The first policy, announced in a Sept. 28, 1998, memo from Dr. Sue Bailey, then the assistant defense secretary for health affairs, ordered an immediate change so that a single physical exam would be used to determine a disability rating.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/11/military_physicalexams_dejavu_071109w/



uhc comment: The previous breathless announcement --> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=259&topic_id=6426