Defense Health Care

Physical Exams and Dental Care Following the Persian Gulf War Gao ID: HRD-93-5 October 15, 1992

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) may have a hard time deciding the disability claims of soldiers who served in the Persian Gulf war because physical exams were not routinely given to all discharged personnel and reservists. VA considers these exams to be crucial in deciding claims for service-connected disability payments. VA and the Defense Department (DOD) must reconcile VA's need for medical information with DOD's need to expedite the separation processing of service members. This could be achieved by establishing a minimal, uniform separation physical examination that carefully catalogs any health problems experienced during active duty. Denial of access to VA dental treatment for Persian Gulf war veterans does not appear to be widespread, but at least several hundred veterans were denied dental treatment because of incorrect paperwork linked to the rapid processing of large numbers of personnel. The dental access problem could be avoided in the future if DOD did not have to specify on discharge papers whether dental care was provided. Because VA could use its own dental examinations and veterans' dental records to establish eligibility for the benefit, the removal of the DOD certification requirement-- a move requiring legislation--would not significantly change the nature or scope of the dental benefit.

GAO found that: (1) the services did not routinely provide separation physical examinations to all service members discharged following the Persian Gulf War; (2) there is no Department of Defense (DOD) standard or policy regarding examinations and the requirements for them vary among the services; (3) DOD efforts to assess the potential long-term health effects of exposure to environmental conditions and to keep track of potentially affected service members appear adequate; (4) DOD is maintaining a detailed record of environmental conditions and service member location in the Persian Gulf area, and has collected extensive air and soil samples; and (5) DOD paperwork errors have forced the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA) to deny some veterans' applications for class II dental care.

Recommendations

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