The Department of Defense’s health plan, Tricare, has so far refused to cover a special treatment for veterans who have suffered brain damage as a result of combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.

 

Cognitive rehabilitation therapy is viewed by many neurologists, some major insurance companies and even medical facilities operated by the Pentagon as an effective form of treatment for brain-damaged soldiers.

 

But the Defense Department, led by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has called for reducing costs, insists its research shows the therapy is not proven enough to invest in.

 

An investigation by NPR and ProPublica, however, determined that Tricare’s assessment of the treatment was “fundamentally misguided” and that reviewers called the Tricare study “deeply flawed,” “unacceptable” and “dismaying.”

 

A few of the more than 180,000 veterans who have developed neurological troubles from serving in the wars have been treated at Project Share, a private program based out of the Shepherd Center for Brain and Spinal Cord Injury in Atlanta. Project Share was founded by former Home Depot magnate and philanthropist Bernie Marcus to help fill the gaps left by Tricare and military and veterans hospitals in caring for those in need of cognitive rehabilitation therapy.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Pentagon Health Plan Won’t Cover Brain-Damage Therapy for Troops (by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica, and Daniel Zwerdling, NPR)

For Brain-Injured Soldiers, Top Quality Care from a Philanthropist, not the Pentagon (by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica, and Daniel Zwerdling, NPR)

2009 ECRI Assessment on Cognitive Rehabilitation for Traumatic Brain Injury (ECRI Institute)