Military update: Review board may disappoint disabled vets

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Military update: Review board may disappoint disabled vets
By Tom Philpott, Special to Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, February 28, 2009

Complaints from veterans and from a high-profile commission that the services routinely were "low-balling" disability ratings for military members spurred Congress to take action last year.

Among other things it ordered the Department of Defense to create a special board to review disability ratings of 20 percent or less given to members who separated since Sept. 11, 2001. Thousands of veterans had higher ratings and additional benefits at stake from any fresh review.

But the new Physical Disability Board of Review (PDBR), which began accepting applications last month, isn’t going to do what some in Congress and many veterans hoped that it would. It will not be reassessing ratings for mental and physical conditions from applicants based solely on the more liberal criteria used by raters at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Veterans Administration Schedule for Ratings Disabilities, or VASRD, will only be used to its full effect in reviewing lower disability ratings awarded on or after Jan. 28, 2008.

In reviewing earlier disability ratings, back through 9/11, the PDBR will determine if the service branch had followed its own guidelines for rating disabilities at the time of a veteran’s separation.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=61018