Showing posts with label Madigan Army Medical Center. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Madigan Army Medical Center. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Pentagon to review how military handles PTSD cases after Madigan scandal

Pentagon to review how military handles PTSD cases
February 28, 2012
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has asked for a review of how the military diagnoses post-traumatic stress order, in the wake of a controversy surrounding a Madigan Army medical center team that screened soldiers for PTSD.

By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has asked for a Pentagon review of how the military diagnoses post-traumatic stress disorder, a request triggered by controversy surrounding a Madigan Army Medical Center forensic psychiatric team that screened soldiers for PTSD.

Soldiers at Madigan complained that they were improperly stripped of the PTSD diagnoses that would have qualified them for a medical retirement benefit.

That prompted a recent review by a Walter Reed National Military Medical Center team that reinstated six of 12 PTSD diagnoses.
read more here

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Expanded review looking into why Madigan closed PTSD program

The program started in 2003 and stopped in 2010 according to this article. It seems as if a program like this would work since they were about treating the whole soldier and their families.

The program offered classes on stress management, group and individual counseling, yoga and other relaxation techniques. At the end of the day, patients would return to their barracks or homes. Later in the program's development, evening sessions were added for patients and spouses.

Expanded review looking into why Madigan closed PTSD program
The Army surgeon general will look into the closure of an intensive treatment program for soldiers with PTSD at Madigan Army Medical Center as part of an investigation into psychiatric care and diagnosis at the military hospital.

By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter

The Army surgeon general is looking into why Madigan Army Medical Center closed an intensive treatment program to help soldiers cope with post-traumatic-stress disorder (PTSD).

At a congressional hearing last Wednesday, the Army surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho, said the review was included in an ongoing investigation of PTSD diagnoses at Madigan.

A PTSD rating can qualify a soldier leaving the Army for medical retirement, which brings considerable financial benefits. At the Wednesday hearing of a U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee, Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, expressed concerns the intensive treatment program at Madigan ran into trouble because its staff diagnosed too many patients with PTSD.

Horoho, responding to Dicks, said the program has not gone away but was merged with other behavioral-health programs at Madigan, according to a transcript of the hearing.

"Having said that ... we are going to investigate to make sure that's actually true, and that we're providing the best possible care to our service members," Horoho testified.
read more here

Friday, February 10, 2012

Madigan Army Medical Center doing damage control after PTSD denials

Army insists doctors at Madigan aren't told not to diagnose PTSD

The Army’s top medical officer this week rejected assertions that commanders are discouraging doctors at Madigan Army Medical Center from diagnosing soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder.

ADAM ASHTON; STAFF WRITER
Published: 02/09/12
The Army’s top medical officer this week rejected assertions that commanders are discouraging doctors at Madigan Army Medical Center from diagnosing soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Absolutely, the Army is not putting pressure on any of our clinicians,” said Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho in remarks to lawmakers in the House subcommittee on defense appropriations.

They were Horoho’s first public remarks on an investigation she launched to review discrepancies between initial PTSD diagnoses at Madigan and later conclusions reached by a forensic psychiatry team at the Army hospital south of Tacoma.

Officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center are reviewing the cases of 14 soldiers who passed through Madigan with PTSD diagnoses only to have those results changed by the forensic team in such a way that the soldiers would receive less generous disability benefits in retirement. The review was first reported by The Seattle Times.

The Army has suspended the leader of the forensic psychiatry team, Dr. William Keppler, while it conducts its investigation.
read more here

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Madigan PTSD denials were about saving money, not lives

When AP reported in September of 2011 this,
A third of military suicides told of plans to die it stated that "About 46 percent had been seen at a military treatment facility sometime in the 90 days before death. The treatment services include physical and behavioral health, substance abuse, family advocacy and chaplains."
It should have caused the American public to flood their elected officials offices with angry phone calls, but not much has changed since this report came out.

Not much changed after this report came out in 2008.
VA denies money a factor in PTSD diagnoses
The Associated Press - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Jun 3, 2008 6:12:45 EDT
WASHINGTON — A Veterans Affairs Department psychologist denies that she was trying to save money when she suggested that counselors make fewer diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder in injured soldiers.

Norma Perez, who helps coordinate a post-traumatic stress disorder clinical team in central Texas, indicated she might have been out of line to cite growing disability claims in her March 20 e-mail titled “Suggestion.” She said her intent was simply to remind staffers that stress symptoms could also be adjustment disorder. The less severe diagnosis could save VA millions of dollars in disability payouts.

“In retrospect, I realize I did not adequately convey my message appropriately, but my intent was unequivocally to improve the quality of care our veterans received,” Perez said in testimony prepared for delivery Wednesday before a Senate panel.

The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the VA inspector general are investigating whether there were broader VA policy motives behind the e-mail, which was obtained and disclosed last month by two watchdog groups. VA has strenuously denied that cost-cutting is a factor in its treatment decisions.

“One question that was raised repeatedly about this latest e-mail was, ‘Why would a clinician be so concerned about the compensation rolls?”’ said Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, who chairs the Senate panel. “As an oversight body, we must know whether the actions of these VA employees point to a systemic indifference to invisible wounds.”

VA Secretary James Peake has called Perez’s e-mail suggestion “inappropriate.” VA officials this week said her e-mail was taken out of context.
click link for more
Do you really think anything is going to change now that this report came out?

Madigan memo on PTSD costs sparked Army review
February 6, 2012
A memo about a psychiatrist's remarks about costs of treating post-traumatic stress disorder has helped spark what the Army Regional Medical Command calls a "top-to-bottom" review of a Madigan Army Medical Center forensic psychiatric team charged with screening soldiers under consideration for medical retirement.

By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter

In a lecture to colleagues, a Madigan Army Medical Center psychiatrist said a soldier who retires with a post-traumatic-stress-disorder diagnosis could eventually receive $1.5 million in government payments, according to a memo by a Western Regional Medical Command ombudsman who attended the September presentation.

The psychiatrist went on to claim the rate of such diagnoses eventually could cause the Army and Department of Veterans Affairs to go broke.

"He (the psychiatrist) stated that we have to be good stewards of the tax payers dollars, and we have to ensure that we are just not 'rubber stamping' a soldier with the diagnoses of PTSD," stated the ombudsman's memo.

That memo has helped spark what the Army Medical Command calls a "top-to-bottom" review of a Madigan forensic psychiatric team charged with screening soldiers under consideration for medical retirement.
read more here

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Army doctors at Madigan suspended over PTSD screenings

Army doctor at Madigan suspended over PTSD comments
Two physicians on a Madigan Army Medical Center psychiatric team have been removed from clinical duties, as the Army opens an investigation into whether PTSD screenings for soldiers were mishandled.

By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter

A Madigan Army Medical Center psychiatrist who screens soldiers for PTSD has been removed from clinical duties while investigators look into controversial remarks he made about patients and the financial costs of disability benefits, according to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray.

Dr. William Keppler is a retired Army officer who leads a forensic psychiatric team responsible for assessing the PTSD diagnoses of soldiers under consideration for medical retirement at Madigan, an Army hospital located at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Tacoma.

Army Medical Command officials confirmed two doctors had been temporarily removed from clinical duties and assigned to administrative work, but they did not name them.

In a prepared statement to The Seattle Times, they said the command has "initiated a top-to-bottom review of the process associated with the forensic psychiatric reviews conducted at Madigan Army Medical Center."
In rejecting those diagnoses, the Madigan team cited psychometric tests that indicated some of those soldiers were malingerers.

Some of the soldiers had been deployed repeatedly to combat zones and been diagnosed with PTSD by other medical professionals, according to a review of their medical records.

"Gen. Horoho has taken this seriously," Murray said. "I think it is important to send a message that this will not be tolerated."
read more here

Friday, January 27, 2012

PTSD veterans get review after Madigan Army Medical Center changes diagnosis

Army is reviewing Madigan's reversal of PTSD diagnoses
The Army plans to review a Madigan Army Medical Center psychiatric team that reversed the PTSD diagnoses of more than a dozen soldiers, potentially weakening their case to receive a medical retirement.

By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter

The Army is reviewing the actions of a Madigan Army Medical Center psychiatric team that reversed the diagnoses of more than a dozen soldiers previously found to have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

All these soldiers have been under consideration for medical retirement, which offers considerably more financial benefits than alternative forms of discharge.

Some have complained that doctors at the hospital, south of Tacoma on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, unfairly stripped them of the PTSD diagnoses, which would help qualify them for a medical retirement, and instead tagged them as malingerers.

In an unusual intervention, the office of the Army Surgeon General has arranged for the soldiers to fly to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where they are scheduled to be examined by another team of Army doctors.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., confirmed details of the review to The Seattle Times.
read more here

Saturday, January 26, 2008

A blog comment that will break your heart about National Guard Family

Post a Comment On: Wounded Times"Veterans in rural areas of nation suffer needlessly"3 Comments - Show Original Post


Comment
Thank you for your blog; it was eloquently put. I thought I was alone dealing with getting help for my husband, medically retired National Guardsman, who is not only suffering with depression but severe pain and unimaginable disability. He has undergone five (5) spinal surgeries over a few years, one of which resulted in his spinal cord being damaged. He was on Active Duty-Title 10.

I wrote to the Governor about fixing the problem. I got a call back from someone at Magigan Army Hospital at Ft. Lewis, WA who gave me a number to call. Well, needless to say this led to about a dozen long distance calls which all led to a string of dead-ends and no mental health care for my husband. Glad that fella at Madigan feels he 'fixed' our problem.

Oh, just in case you were wondering what you get at the end of waiting years for the VA to process your claim (even with LOD form).... it's a 0% rating; collections for thousands of dollars; car repossession; $80,000 owed in back child support; living with your mother-in-law because you can't afford a place; suspended driver's license; AND an ex-wife that doesn't let you talk to your children because you 'have to be lying about being disabled or you would be getting a check... Get a job!'

Oh and so many other perks to being an unrecognized (0% rating) disabled veteran of this war.

Yep... it's an 'Army of One'.


January 26, 2008 7:11 PM


Kathie Costos said...
My profound apologies for what you and your family is going through, especially your husband. I wish I could say you were alone but you have way too much company. This is happening all over the country, and the rest of the world. You'd think we would just be better at dealing with all of it but we are as lousy as the rest of the nations when it comes to taking care of those who defend their nations.

The fact is, we were never very good at it. My husband came back in 1971 from Vietnam with mild PTSD he thought he'd get over. Back then they didn't even really know what it was. It took until 1990 to have him diagnosed, and that was when I already fully understood what was wrong with him, another three years to get him to go to a veterans center, followed by the VA. They tied up his claim for 6 years, taking our tax refund every year to pay for his treatment because our health insurance wouldn't cover it once the VA diagnosed it as combat related PTSD. We almost lost everything as well, but you already did. Things have only gotten worse because now there are a lot more needing care and no one was ready for it. That's the part that pisses me off the most. They knew this was coming but took no action to prepare for any of it. There are now less doctors and nurses than there were after the Gulf War. The VA cut staff and their budget in 2005. The list goes on and so does the suffering. Families like your's are known to people who have been staying on top of it, but to the rest of the country, they haven't a single clue.

I have a suggestion. A few weeks ago, Ed Schultz on Air America was ranting about Bill O'Reilly claiming there were no homeless veterans. A Marine called in saying he was a homeless veteran. This caused a woman in Florida to make some calls within minutes to a chain of her friends, all Marine Moms and they ended up getting help for him all the way in Colorado. This was only the first good part of this story.

It brought to light the suffering the men and women who were willing to serve are going through. I don't know if you're a Democrat or Republican or vote at all, but you are a military wife with a wounded husband and suffering family. Call in his show on Monday and tell him your story as well. The point is, you and your family are homeless. Not as bad off as some families who are in fact sleeping in shelters but without your family standing behind you, you would be one of them sleeping under overpasses. You need to get your story out so that people will be just as outraged as I have been all these years. People care but they only do when they know what's happening. The entire country is united behind those who serve no matter how they feel about Iraq and they will stand behind you. Just tell them you need help and you'll get it. They will put the pressure on your congressman to get you some help or they will step up all by themselves if not. Trust the heart of this nation for you and your family and put this into their hands.

If you need to vent in private email me anytime.

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com

January 26, 2008 7:28 PM