Last week, CREW and Vote Vets "released an e-mail obtained from a Veterans Affairs (VA) employee directing VA staff to refrain from diagnosing soldiers and veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD):

On March 20, 2008 a VA hospital’s PTSD program coordinator sent the e-mail below to a number of VA employees, including psychologists, social workers, and a psychiatrist stating that due to an increased number of “compensation seeking veterans,” the staff should “refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out” and they should “R/O [rule out] PTSD” and consider a diagnosis of “Adjustment Disorder” instead.

The fallout continues.  Today, NPR is reporting that more members of Congress are asking for an investigation into this matter:

In an e-mail, a psychologist at the Olin E. Teague Veterans' Center in Temple, Texas, advised her staff to stop diagnosing veterans with PTSD to save money. The e-mail became public last week.

The head of the Department of Veterans Affairs insists that's not VA policy.

Psychologist Norma Perez was hired last summer to help coordinate a PTSD program at the center, which draws a lot of veterans. Not long afterward, Perez announced she would disband a dozen or so PTSD therapy groups, in which about 140 veterans met monthly with a clinical counselor. Perez wanted to replace the long-term groups with short-term plans — lasting no longer than three months — that focus on coping skills and cognitive processing therapy. The VA uses a broad range of therapies for PTSD, including group therapy.

Some veterans in the program said Perez told them that long-term group therapy doesn't work. Some vets accused Perez of personally trying to destroy their groups.

But Kim Larsen, a former Army medic and Vietnam vet with PTSD, who attended two VA forums about the plan to disband the groups, had a different impression. He thought Perez was simply the messenger. Then he saw an e-mail from Perez to her staff, advising them to "refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out...." It was dated March 20.

Incensed, Larsen shared the e-mail and it wound up with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a watchdog group, and VoteVets.org, a veterans advocacy group. Last week, the groups posted the e-mail on the Internet, setting off a tempest.

Congressional leaders and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama called for an investigation, and the inspector general of the VA has begun one.

Rep. Bob Filner, a California Democrat who heads the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said of Perez: "I can't believe that someone at that level position is doing this on her own. Somewhere in the hierarchy people are saying, 'It's costing us too much with these PTSD diagnoses. Cool it.'"