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Vets back expanded family mental health care

A bill designed to provide mental-health services to family members of service members with non-service-connected disabilities received full support from veterans’ service organizations, as well as the Veterans Affairs Department.

“Many [veterans] are not rated as service-connected because they have not yet applied for benefits, or because of the length of time it takes VA to produce a decision on a claim,” said Christopher Needham, senior legislative associate for Veterans of Foreign Wars. He testified June 26 before the House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee on health.

He explained that counseling for family members helps them understand their veteran’s health issues, as well as how to support the veteran through it.

“We have seen with this conflict — especially with mental-health issues — that families are at the forefront of providing care and easing the service member’s transition back into civilian life,” Needham said.

The proposed bill would eliminate the requirement that a veteran with a non-connected injury must be hospitalized for his or her family to receive counseling.

Gerald Cross, principal deputy undersecretary of health for VA, agreed that change was needed.

“The draft bill would eliminate vestiges of an old system that no longer have any place in today’s VA health-care system,” he said. “Importantly, these amendments could improve the treatment outcomes for the affected group of veterans.”

A second bill seeks to eliminate co-payments for veterans who have non-service-connected catastrophic injuries, such as spinal-cord injuries, even if they have incomes that place them in the same categories as veterans who must pay a co-payment.

Paralyzed Veterans of America members “go to the VA because there is no other system in the country that provides the level and quality of spinal-cord injury care,” said Carl Blake, national legislative director for Paralyzed Veterans of America. “Because of the nature of their disabilities, they require a host of pharmaceuticals, equipment, devices and supplies to function on a daily basis.”

Cross said VA needs “an opportunity to collect and analyze all of the necessary data” before making a recommendation about the bill. He said he could provide that information by the end of next week.

A third bill seeks to allow non-profit research and education corporations that work within the VA to work with more than one VA center at a time.

“This would let several smaller facilities pool their resources to improve management or staffing,” Needham said.