It is no secret that there needs to quite a bit of reform in the disability rating system for the Department of Defense and Veterans' Affairs (VA). At present, there is no transparency in the process. The Department of Defense (DoD) conducts their own disability evaluations, the VA conducts their own disability evaluations, separate systems cause confusion, and the process is extremely timely and divided.
To help remedy this situation, there is a new pilot being tested called the disability evaluation system (DES) that consists of a single disability evaluation that is used to diagnose, rate, and compensate disabled members by both the DoD and the VA. The pilot was developed jointly between the DoD and VA to help ill or injured service members obtain higher disability ratings, move along quickly in the process, and start receiving their payments faster. The pilot programmers also aimed at providing more transparency in the process, which helps service members get taken care of more quickly and leaves them feeling fairly treated.
The pilot is currently in five military bases and is set to open in 17 more bases by May 2009. Nearly 900 service members who are disabled have been through the DES pilot, and it is estimated that nearly 700 disabled service members a month will be able to go through the system when it reaches 22 military bases.
While nearly everything about the pilot seems wonderful and successful, some are worried about expanding the disability evaluation program too quickly without hiring and training additional staff for advocacy counseling. The pilot will also create a very heavy workload on Physical Evaluation Board Liaison Officers (PEBLOs) and case managers. It has been said that PEBLO is not an advocate of this pilot being pushed into the system so quickly, without the necessary new hires and trainings needed, especially at the larger military bases.
In the end, the consensus is that 'you have to start somewhere'. Putting the new DES pilot into place and moving ill and injured service members through the system at a quicker rate (with less work) will eventually show results and the initial reviews of the pilot are encouraging.
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