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Service Members Are Left in Dark on Health Errors
Actiive-duty, not veterans. Is there a more appropriate forum for this?
Service Members Are Left in Dark on Health Errors
U.S. | Military Medicine
By SHARON LaFRANIEREAPRIL 19, 2015
Tens of thousands of serious medical mistakes happen every year at American hospitals and clinics. While a handful of health care organizations have opted for broad disclosure amid calls for greater openness, most patients and their families still face significant obstacles if they try to find out what went wrong. But as Mr. Moore’s case illustrates, the nation’s 1.3 million active-duty service members are in a special bind, virtually powerless to hold accountable the health care system that treats them.
They are captives of the military medical system, unable, without specific approval, to get care elsewhere if they fear theirs is substandard or dangerous. Yet if they are harmed or die, they or their survivors have no legal right to challenge their care, and seek answers, by filing malpractice suits.
Only 18 months ago did the Pentagon explicitly allow them to file complaints about their treatment, although some had done so earlier. But even then they are barred from learning the results of any inquiry. Under federal law, investigations at military hospitals and clinics are confidential, in part to keep the findings from the roughly two million civilian patients they treat per year — spouses and children of service members, retirees and others — who can and do file malpractice claims.
In scores of interviews, active-duty patients, relatives and military medical workers described how, in that information vacuum, attempts to ferret out the truth about suspected medical mistakes — through freedom-of-information requests, complaints, meetings with military medical officials — produced anodyne letters of condolence, blanket denials of poor care or simply nothing at all. ... “There is just no transparency. You can’t sue. You have no insight into the process,” said Cheryl Garner, a military intelligence officer who retired last year. “As active duty, we just don’t have much recourse.”
By SHARON LaFRANIEREAPRIL 19, 2015
Tens of thousands of serious medical mistakes happen every year at American hospitals and clinics. While a handful of health care organizations have opted for broad disclosure amid calls for greater openness, most patients and their families still face significant obstacles if they try to find out what went wrong. But as Mr. Moore’s case illustrates, the nation’s 1.3 million active-duty service members are in a special bind, virtually powerless to hold accountable the health care system that treats them.
They are captives of the military medical system, unable, without specific approval, to get care elsewhere if they fear theirs is substandard or dangerous. Yet if they are harmed or die, they or their survivors have no legal right to challenge their care, and seek answers, by filing malpractice suits.
Only 18 months ago did the Pentagon explicitly allow them to file complaints about their treatment, although some had done so earlier. But even then they are barred from learning the results of any inquiry. Under federal law, investigations at military hospitals and clinics are confidential, in part to keep the findings from the roughly two million civilian patients they treat per year — spouses and children of service members, retirees and others — who can and do file malpractice claims.
In scores of interviews, active-duty patients, relatives and military medical workers described how, in that information vacuum, attempts to ferret out the truth about suspected medical mistakes — through freedom-of-information requests, complaints, meetings with military medical officials — produced anodyne letters of condolence, blanket denials of poor care or simply nothing at all. ... “There is just no transparency. You can’t sue. You have no insight into the process,” said Cheryl Garner, a military intelligence officer who retired last year. “As active duty, we just don’t have much recourse.”