Senator Murray: 40 percent of PTSD diagnoses reversed at Madigan
Mar 21, 2012, 8:02 AM | Updated: 9:22 am
Senator Patty Murray has released statistics showing that one screening team at Madigan Army Medical Center reversed the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder diagnoses of 40 percent of the patients it evaluated. (AP Photo)
Startling new statistics raise questions about how
patients
are evaluated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at
Madigan
Army Medical Center.
Senator Patty Murray claims that one forensic psychiatry
screening team at Madigan reversed the PTSD diagnoses of
more than 40-percent of patients since 2007.
That team has been suspended from screening for PTSD.
The Seattle Times
reports the statistics were compiled as
part of an ongoing investigation by the Army Medical
Command. Wednesday morning, Murray questioned top military
leaders on Capitol Hill about what she calls
“shortcomings”
in the efforts to diagnosis and treat PTSD.
“The challenges of mental health care and PTSD are real and no one, no one should be denying any service member care purely because of a question of cost,” Murray told the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
Murray is concerned that Army medical teams are making cost a
factor when considering a PTSD diagnosis.
“Fiscal considerations are not, in any way, a part of the evaluations,” said Army Secretary John McHugh. “It’s simply unnacceptable,” he told Murray, adding “we’re doing everything we can to make that clear system-wide.”
An Army memo
estimates that it can cost as much as $1.5 million to
treat
PTSD over the lifetime of a military retiree.
