Maybe some hope for PTSD "personality disorder" discharged veterans

This is a great piece on getting some rumors out of the way for veterans needing healthcare. The biggest thing I noticed is one that very well may help out some of the over 22,000 servicemen and women discharged under "personality disorder" when they actually have PTSD instead.

Busting Myths About VA Health Care

November 19, 2010 • TERRY HOWELL



The following post was originally fea tured on the VA’s VAntage Point blog.
By Alex Horton



Myth Number Two — I can only receive care for service connected injuries.

Status: False -
You can receive VA hospital and out patient care for any ailment, service con­nected or not if you are enrolled in the VA health care system, but you may have to pay a copayment. For example, if a Veteran is service-connected for a bad knee, any VA hospital and out patient care and medication for the knee is free of charge. However, if the same Vet goes into surgery to remove an appendix and it’s not service con nected, he may be subject to a co-pay depending on the amount of his disability rating and other factors. Familiarize your self with co-pay guide lines and rates.

A small number of Veterans, such as those with bad conduct discharges that VA has determined were issued under conditions other than honorable and who are not subject to certain statutory bars to benefits, can only be treated for their service connected disabilities and nothing else. If one of those Vets is service connected for their left foot, they can only use VA health care for their left foot and nothing else.
read more here
Busting Myths About VA Health Care

The trick with this is to get the VA to do what the DOD did not and that is to decide if a veteran was suffering from PTSD instead of for the reason they were given a "personality disorder" discharge. This is a "myth" that I didn't know about. I was under the impression that if a veteran received a less than honorable discharge, they couldn't receive any services from the VA at all. To this day I don't know how many ended up being kicked out of the service instead of being treated because the last reports are a couple of years old. It would be nice if congress would do the right thing in these cases, but I doubt that is ever going to happen.