Military Disability System: Increased Supports for Servicemembers and Better Pilot Planning Could Improve the Disability Evaluation Process
Abstract
The Army has taken a number of steps to help service members navigate the disability evaluation process through additional supports and streamlining efforts, but it faces challenges in meeting internal goals and demonstrating impact. Most significantly, the Army has expanded support to service members by hiring more staff, such as board liaisons to help service members navigate the process and legal personnel to counsel them during the process. Furthermore, the Army established internal staff-to service member goals for board liaisons as well as for board physicians who are responsible for documenting service members conditions. However, the Army has not met its internal staffing goals for board liaisons and physicians, and it continues to face shortages in legal personnel. The Army has also struggled to meet timeliness goals for case processing and has even experienced negative trends over the last year, despite streamlining initiatives such as reducing forms, increasing automation in the process, and deploying a unit of mobile medical staff to help address caseload surges at certain locations. According to Army officials and data, longer case processing times have resulted, in part, from increases in the number and complexity of disability cases, as exemplified by the growing incidence of conditions that require psychiatric evaluation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2008
- Accession Number
- ADA487068
Entities
People
- Barbara Steel-lowney
- Bonnie Anderson
- Bryan Rogowski
- Cindy Gilbert
- Daniel Bertoni
- Greg Whitney
- Joel Green
- Michele Grgich
- Rebecca Beale
- Walter Vance
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office