An analysis finds a pattern of blocked claims for psychological injuries sustained by contract employees in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer
June 17, 2007

Many times I have written about contractors and the fight some of them have AFTER the return home from Iraq or Afghanistan. I have talked about how many have been broken either in mind or body, and been abandoned by their companies. The LA Times has done another article addressing this issue.

A Times investigation of a taxpayer-financed insurance system, based on reviews of scores of cases, has found a pattern of repeatedly blocked claims for treatment of psychological injuries sustained by civilian workers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some seriously afflicted contract workers have been dumped into indigent medical care programs, according to court records. Many have had to wage lengthy legal battles to win payments for psychological treatment. At least four have committed suicide after returning home from Iraq, according to court records and interviews with attorneys and family members.

Although insurance companies have paid for counseling for many workers, they also have fought claims for psychological treatment more than for other types of injuries, according to data compiled by The Times from Department of Labor records.

Though contractors claiming psychological problems made up about 4% of nearly 1,400 serious reported injuries from 2003 to 2005, such workers accounted for 13% of the cases fought out in courtrooms.

In fighting claims, the insurance companies have relied on doctors with questionable expertise, according to court records and claimants’ attorneys.

In one case, an insurance company psychiatrist who specialized in pharmacological research broadly dismissed psychology as “baloney.” In another, a psychologist hired by insurance giant American International Group, or AIG, for his supposed expertise in PTSD had seen only 10 to 15 cases in a decade of practice.

The companies have disputed some cases in which their own doctors determined that workers were suffering psychological damage, court records show.

I encourage ya’ll to read the full article at “War, red tape haunt civilian workers”.