Litigation

U.S. Senate to investigate military health insurance denial of long term brain injury rehabilitation coverage

By Michael Kaplen

A U.S. Senate subcommittee announced Friday that it was opening an investigation into the basis of a decision by the Pentagon's health plan to deny a brain injury rehabilitation treatment to troops with traumatic brain injuries.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), the chairman of the subcommittee on contracting oversight, said she wanted to examine the decision by Tricare, the military insurance plan and a study they sponsored concerning the benefits of cognitive rehabilitation therapy for traumatic brain injury. The insurance company sponsored study disagreed with the findings of major studies conducted by the Pentagon and the National Institutes of Health, which concluded that cognitive rehabilitation was beneficial. 

In a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, McCaskill cited an investigation by ProPublica and NPR in December, which found that top scientific experts had questioned the Tricare-funded study in confidential reviews, calling it "deeply flawed" and "unacceptable."

The ProPublica and NPR investigation also found that senior Pentagon officials have worried about the high price of the care, which can cost more than $50,000 per patient. Some studies estimate that as many as 400,000 troops have suffered traumatic brain injuries in the war zones, though only a small percentage of them would need a full-scale program of cognitive rehabilitation therapy.

Full post as published by Brain Injury News and Information on January 23, 2011 (boomark / email).