Following complaints, Army medical records board honoring latest Madigan PTSD diagnoses [View all]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/11/25/2913841/following-complaints-army-medical.html

Following complaints, Army medical records board honoring latest Madigan PTSD diagnoses
By ADAM ASHTON
Staff writer
November 25, 2013 Updated 17 hours ago

The Army has begun correcting medical records for former Madigan Army Medical Center patients who left the military with conflicting diagnoses for behavioral health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Jeanie Chang, 30, of Tenino learned last week that the Army Review Board for Correction of Medical Records would change her file to reflect the PTSD diagnosis she received at Madigan last year.

Previously, the review board rejected her PTSD diagnosis and refused to correct her records, a decision that cost her disability benefits and left her with a sense that military doctors were misusing her conversations with them.

Chang was among some 400 former Madigan patients who were called back to the hospital last year amid concerns that the hospital’s forensic psychiatry team was under-diagnosing PTSD to save the Army money in long-term disability benefits. Of those, 158 patients left the review with PTSD diagnoses.