An Army agency that sets final medical records for disabled soldiers has been ordered to disregard reports from Madigan Army Medical Center doctors under scrutiny last year for their handling of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The new order by an assistant secretary of the Army is meant to clear the way for up to 21 former Madigan patients to receive benefits for mental health conditions. It comes nearly two years after the Army suspended the hospital’s forensic psychiatry team over concerns that its doctors were reversing PTSD diagnoses.
Those former soldiers were among some 400 Madigan patients who were called back to the hospital last year and re-evaluated by Army psychologists. Of that group, 158 left the process with PTSD diagnoses that should have entitled them to better disability benefits.
Some, however, could not persuade the Army to correct their official records. They were blocked by the Army Board for Correction of Military Records, which in some cases upheld the original diagnoses from Madigan’s forensic psychiatrists denying patients benefits for PTSD.
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MILITARY JUSTICE FOR ALL 