As previously indicated in the
FORUM for the Veterans Disability
Commission here on this web page,
the Institute of Medicine showed
up to the June session of hearings
with a press release in hand
to fully denounce the entire
VA disability rating system.

The press release was issued to
the Washington Post while we
were in session. The problem
was, the Post reporters were
too incompetent to know or
understand what the press
release was.

By Day 2 of the sessions, the
Washington Post did make
an attempt to publish an
article rooted from the press
release, but that article was
bungled on several different
counts.

The Washington Post reporters
mistakenly thought that the
Institute's press release had
to do with a recommendation
for changes in the Pay Rate
for disabled Veterans. That
is NOT what the press release
was about.

The release was about the full
damnation of the VA Disability
medical diagnostic codes system
after a year long review by
the Institute of Medicine.

For those of us who actually
attended the Commission hearing
sessions in June, we were treated
to our very own copies of the
official press release from
the Institute of Medicine.

So I give to you the actual
text of that release here below,
and for those who come by the
published Post version dated
June 8, 2007 on-line, you will
be able to do your very own
comparisons to see just how
bungled the Washington Post
reporters were in evaluating this
press release.

In fact, the Washington Post
had contacted Joe Voilante of
the Washington DAV Office for
comments on this press release,
and Joe himself did not even
attend the Commission sessions.
So Joe's comments in the resulting
Post article were all misfires
because the Washington Post reporters
had misphrased the entirety of
the IOM press release to him to
extract his reaction comments.

Here is the actual IOM press
release that we received as
the Institute came breezing
through the Commission doors.

___________________________________

Overhaul of VA System for
Evaluating and Rating Veterans
Disabilities Needed To Ensure
Appropriate Compensation for
Both Work-Related and Noneconomic
Losses


WASHINGTON --- The U.S. Department
of Veterans Affairs (VA) needs to
overhaul its Schedule for Rating
Disabilities -- the tool it uses
to determine the degree of disability
suffered during military service --
to ensure that Veterans receive
appropriate compensation and other
benefits, says a new report from
the Institute of Medicine. The agency
also needs to establish a process
for keeping the Rating Schedule up to
date; some of its elements have not
been changed since 1945, and do not
adequately reflect current understanding
of certain conditions that now occur
more frequently, such as traumatic
brain injury.

In addition, the agency should make
sure that the revised Rating
Schedule addresses the extent to which
Veterans disabilities affect their
quality of life and limit any aspect
of their daily lives, not just
their ability to work which is the
disability program's current focus.

If the revised schedule does not,
the VA will need to develop new tools
to identify and compensate for these
noneconomic losses, said the
Committee that wrote the report. Written
at the request of the Veterans
Disability Benefits Commission,
the report's recommendations are
intended to inform the Commission's
review of the benefits program
and it's report to the president
and Congress this Fall.

"With troops being injured nearly
every day, the VA's system for
evaluating and rating former service
members disabilities should be
as up to date as possible with
current medical knowledge of
impairment and its effects on
a persons functioning and quality
of life," said Committee Chair,
Lonnie R. Bristow, former president
of the American Medical Association.

"Right now, the Rating Schedule
is out of sync with modern medicine
and modern concepts of disability.
This report details ways the
agency can more successfully carry
out the goals of Veterans benefits
programs, which were created
to recognize the nations debt to
those who serve and compensate
them for their sacrifices.

Veterans who have a service connected
disability can receive monthly
payments tied to their disability
ratings, ranging from $115 a month
for a 10 percent rating to $2,471
per month for a 100 percent rating.
Clinical professionals medically
evaluate medically evalutate claimants
and provide their assessments to
another group of non-clinical
professionals who use this
information to determine the
applicant's degree of disability
using the Rating Schedule , a list
of about 700 diagnostic codes, each
with criteria for determining the
percentage of disability. According
to federal statute, the Veterans
disability benefits program is
supposed to compensate for average
loss of earning capacity, though
Congress and the VA have also
recognized and compensated Veterans
for other, noneconomic losses
since the disability program
was codified in the 1920's.

VA should immediately undertake a
comprehensive revision of the
Rating Schedule, beginning with
those conditions that have not
been reviewed in the last decade.
This step should remove ambiguous
criteria and obsolete conditions
and introduce current medical
knowledge of the effects of injuries
and diseases such as traumatic
brain injury, diabetes, and hearing
loss, the report says. The agency
also should reassess the Rating
Schedule approximately every 10
years and revise it as needed.

Some conditions identified in
recent years are not in the Rating
Schedule. In addition, VA should
adopt new diagnostic codes based
on the International Classification
of Diseases (ICD) codes and the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders (DSM), which
are used widely by other health
care providers and systems in the
United States and elsewhere and
undergo regular revision, so they
would help VA keep up with advances
in medical understanding.

VA should regularly assess whether
the Rating Schedule accurately
predicts loss of potential earnings
and adjust it as needed. Such
assessments would ascertain if
Veterans with higher disability
ratings indeed earn less on average
and ensure that average earnings
at each rating level are the same
for all disabling conditions. But
the Committee concluded that work
disability alone is an unduly
restrictive rationale for VA's
disability program. Veterans who
can and do work can be disabled
in other aspects of their lives,
such as their ability to maintain
their families and other personal
relationships or to engage in
sports, hobbies, or other activities
they formerly pursued.

The agency should develop or adapt
a scale to measure specific
noneconomic effects and loss
of quality of life and determine
whether the updated Rating Schedule
adequately compensates for these
negative consequences. If it does
not, VA should either modify the
Rating Schedule criteria or develop
separate mechanisms to do so, the
report says.

Additional staff and resources will
be needed to update the Rating
Schedule and implement other
recommendations, the committee noted.
VA would benefit from guidance
provided by an external advisory
committee made up of medical
professionals as well as vocational
experts and representatives of
the Veterans community. Likewise,
the agency personnel who rate the
severity of Veterans disability
should have ready access to health
care professionals who can provide
guidance on medical and psychological
issues that may only become apparent
during the rating process. Few raters
have medical backgrounds, and
they do not have medical experts on
staff to consult on complex cases.

VA and the U.S. Department of Defense
should give every Veteran applying
for disability compensation a thorough
evaluation of all their medical,
psychosocial, and vocational abilities
and needs at the time of separation
from service, rather than conducting
such evaluations piecemeal. Veterans
may be eligible additional benefits
suc as job training meant to help
them achieve their full potential
in civilian life, but currently
before they can even be considered
for these services, they first must
establish their disability, a process
that can take months or even years.

The study was sponsored by the
Veterans Disability Benefits
Commission.

Title of the Official Institute of
Medicine report is:
A 21st Century of System for
Evaluating Veterans for Disability
Benefits

End of Press Release
______________________________________

Can you now see why I said
in my Blog reports here on Forum
that we all celebrated this
IOM denouncement? Can you see
now why I rushed to the floor
and entered a FULL ENDORSEMENT
of the Institute's report ??

Was I telling the truth or what?

All Veterans who wish to support
our email drive now please go
to the 2 FORUM Blogs that I
just finished covering on this
June session and obtain your
email details there please.
The Veterans Commission FORUM
and the VFJ Organization
FORUM both have attached email
drives ready for you to jump
in and endorse this historic
event smartly staged by the
Institute of Medicine.

Ha Ha Macat Ya got me good. Yes
you are absolutely right.

The Vets Commission is driven
by Stakeholders outcry. This is
the one place where you can all
let the emails of support "let
her rip" and actually have it
make a difference in the outcome
of what they decide. 100 people
sending emails is fine, but
1,000 people sending emails is
even better.

Stand up and be counted now.
Let them know that the Institute
of Medicine has it right, and
we are going to get behind
it as the solution to this
big ass VA Turkey !!!

ha ha, thanks Macat.

Sue, I get the impression that you would like for all us veterans to send an email. lol