75,000 veterans get a chance to correct disability ratings

Disability review board 'invite' letters going to 75,000 veterans
By TOM PHILPOTT
Stars and Stripes
Published: January 19, 2012

On combat patrol several years ago, a U.S. soldier suffered two attacks from improvised explosive devices in a 24-hour-period. The first one rattled him and killed his buddy. The second one blew him out of his vehicle and knocked him unconscious.

The Army would medically separate this soldier with a 10-percent disability rating, even though his medical records showed symptoms of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

This case, and many like it, occurred before Congress in 2008 ordered military branches to clean up their disability evaluation systems and end practices that had underrated medical conditions of ill and injured members.

Congress did something else too, to correct past wrongs. It directed the Department of Defense to establish the Physical Disability Review Board (PDRB) with authority to reexamine the files and, if appropriate, raise disability ratings of up to 77,000 veterans -- those medically separated with ratings less than 30 percent between Sept. 11, 2001, and Dec. 31, 2009.

A few weeks ago the soldier struck by those two IEDs year ago learned that the PDRB had recommended his disability rating be raised to 70 percent, well above the 30-percent threshold needed to qualify for disability retirement, and applied back to the date of the Army’s first rating decision.
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