Nearly 1,500 Colorado veterans are eligible to have their disability status reviewed by a board that gives full retirement benefits to more than half of all applicants, according to the Department of Defense.
A reassessment by the Physical Disability Board of Review can mean the difference between receiving a one-time settlement from the government and receiving a monthly paycheck for life and health benefits for the entire family.
But government bureaucracy, a lack of public outreach, and sometimes pride are keeping many veterans from applying.
The Department of Defense panel was created to address concerns that branches of the armed forces were treating injuries differently and possibly downplaying them to cut costs.
The board will review cases for veterans medically discharged between Sept. 11, 2001, when military participation increased, and Dec. 31, 2009, two years after changes to the military’s rating system took effect.
Amy Contreras of Castle Rock is one of the 116 Colorado veterans who applied to have their disability ratings reviewed. It has taken nearly two years, but the panel recently increased her post-service benefits.
Contreras, now 36, fractured her foot during a 2004 training exercise with fellow Marines. A few months later, she deployed to Iraq, where she said she wore combat boots 2 4/7 instead of a special boot to treat her injury.
“Marines are tough,” she said. “They say, ‘Suck it up.’ Unless (your limbs) are falling off you, you should be fine.”
But the pain worsened, and eventually she couldn’t walk without receiving steroid and numbing injections. In the summer of 2005, she flew back to the U.S. for surgery and was medically discharged the following April.
When she was discharged, a group of physicians rated her 20 percent disabled. People who leave the armed forces with a disability rating of less than 30 percent receive a one-time severance check. Those who are rated 30 percent or higher receive monthly payments and health insurance.
Contreras received some benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs, but not the same ones she would have if her disability rating had been higher. But she didn’t push the issue.
“I kind of felt like I was taking advantage of someone or something. I do have my limbs,” she said. “I know Marines who don’t.”
Then, in the summer of 2009, Con treras received a phone call saying she was eligible to have her disability reviewed. Contreras pulled together a pile of her medical forms and discharge papers, and she sent them to the board in September 2009.
She didn’t hear anything for a year, then began calling every few months, only to be frustrated when the people she talked to couldn’t answer all of her questions.
“It’s like the left hand isn’t talking to the right hand. It’s not a well-oiled machine,” she said.
Board president Michael LoGrande acknowledges that there are problems. The board, which has 13 full-time staff members and some temporary contractors, has a backlog of 745 cases, brought on partially by a class-action lawsuit filed by veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Of the 2,500 applications submitted nationwide, 993 have been reviewed and closed, LoGrande said. It now takes an average of 336 days to review a case, LoGrande said.
LoGrande said he hopes to keep the contractors until the backlog clears and afterward to reduce the wait time. He also said he hopes to increase outreach, possibly sending personalized letters to the estimated 70,000 eligible veterans nationwide.
LoGrande said he thinks application numbers are low because few veterans know about the program. Representatives of about a dozen veterans groups along the Front Range said they had not heard of the board, but few were surprised.
“They’ll put together a board like this every once in a while or make some change in the procedure, but they don’t tell the veterans,” said George Newell of the Boulder chapter of Colorado Veterans for Peace.
Contreras, who is married to a Marine reservist and the mother of two boys, called the review process “frustrating” and the long wait “ridiculous.”
After waiting nearly two years, she learned recently that the board upgraded her to 30 percent disabled. She knows she will be entitled to health insurance but has been unable to learn what her benefits are beyond that.
“But,” she said, “I’m glad about the outcome — very satisfied. If the word got out more, I think it could help a lot of people.”
Liz Navratil: 303-954-1054 or lnavratil@denverpost.com
Disability information
Veterans who believe they are entitled to additional retirement benefits can send their inquiries to the Physical Disability Board of Review:
PDBRPA@afncr.af.mil or PDBR intake unit
SAF/MRBR
550 C Street West; Suite 41
Randolph AFB, TX 78150-4743
