washingtonscene
COLA Wanes The Consumer Price Index dropped 0.2 percent in May. For the fiscal year, cumu- lative inflation is 1.5 percent above its initial baseline. Keep tabs on month-to-month infla- tion trends at www
.moaa.org/colawatch.
under IDES, the GAO reports case backlogs continue to climb, and it takes the VA as long as 400 days to make a final disability- rating decision. They also noted satisfaction rates among wounded warriors and their families are much lower than DoD reports. MOAA is frustrated, after more than a decade of war, the departments still are wrestling with the same issues and provid- ing the same responses about working to improve the system. The VA and DoD need to develop a disability evaluation system that can be sustained during times of system surge and for the long haul.
Special Needs O
Addressed Senate holds autism hearing.
n June 21, the Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee heard testimony on DoD programs that support military families with special needs. Committee members focused on the issue of applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy for military children with autism. DoD classifies ABA therapy as an “edu- cational intervention” rather than medical therapy, thereby excluding it from cover- age under the basic TRICARE Program. Military special-needs families with autism spectrum disorder might be eligible to receive ABA services under TRICARE’s Extended Care Health Option (ECHO). ECHO provides benefits not otherwise available under TRICARE to eligible active duty families (including activated Guard and Reserve) with special needs to cover costs of supplies and services necessary for qualifying medical and physical conditions. Recently, the Office of Personnel Man- agement (OPM) determined ABA for autism is considered “medical therapy for the purposes of offering it to beneficiaries
40 MILITARY OFFICER AUGUST 2012
in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.” This decision allows, but does not require, companies that provide health care coverage to civilian federal workers to offer ABA treatment. Jeremy Hilton, a former member of
MOAA’s Currently Serving Spouse Advisory Council, a veteran, and a father of a special- needs daughter, was among the six expert witnesses at the hearing. Because ABA ther- apy now is a covered benefit for children of federal employees, Hilton said, military children with autism deserve no less. He entered into the record more than 75 personal statements from military fami- lies with a special-needs family member. The statements included issues such as:
lengthy state Medicaid waiver lists; losing ECHO coverage upon retirement (including servicemembers who are medi- cally retired); and TRICARE’s classification of ABA as an educational intervention rather than a medical therapy. DoD has asked to review the OPM study
that resulted in the decision to classify ABA as a medical therapy. But Karen Guice, M.D., principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Health Affairs, said it could take “a long time, up to six months” to review it. Subcommittee Chair Sen. Jim Webb
(D-Va.) concluded the hearing saying, “Our question, our burden is evaluating the methodology in order to determine whether this therapy is medically effective and, if it is, in these cases where it should be applied, there shouldn’t be any ques- tion about what we do.”
MO
— Contributors are Col. Steve Strobridge, USAF- Ret., direc tor; Col. Mike Hayden, USAF-Ret.; Col. Bob Norton, USA-Ret.; Cmdr. René Campos, USN- Ret.; Capt. Kathy Beasley, USN-Ret.; Col. Phil Odom, USAF-Ret.; Karen Golden; Matt Murphy; and Jamie Naughton, MOAA’s Government Relations Depart- ment. To subscribe to MOAA’s Legislative Update, visit
www.moaa.org/email.
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