Clinical Social Work Journal

, Volume 46, Issue 2, pp 110–120 | Cite as

A Comparative Analysis of VHA, Non-VHA, and Overall Outpatient Treatment Use Intensity Among Older U.S. Veterans Denied or Awarded VA Service-Connected Disability Compensation

  • Dennis Adrian Fried
  • Bart K. Holland
  • Marian Passannante
  • William E. Halperin
  • Drew Helmer
Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

Poorer health is often associated with greater healthcare use among the general population. In contrast, while many veterans denied VA disability compensation ("denied applicants") are as impaired as those awarded VA disability compensation ("awarded applicants"), studies suggest that these veterans may nevertheless utilize less VHA healthcare. Whether they concurrently utilize less non-VHA, and overall healthcare, however, remains a critical, unresolved issue. The 2001 National Survey of Veterans was used to examine VHA, non-VHA, and overall outpatient healthcare treatment use intensity during the previous 12 months among veterans denied or awarded VA disability compensation. Results: Denied applicants were significantly more likely than those awarded to have not used any VHA outpatient healthcare during the previous 12 months (OR=2.45, 95% CI: 1.24, 4.81). Moreover, while not statistically significant, point estimates consistently suggested that denied may have concurrently used more non-VHA, and overall outpatient healthcare than awarded. It appears veterans denied VA disability compensation are forgoing VHA outpatient healthcare services, perhaps in favor of non-VHA outpatient healthcare services. While this result may be consistent with the intent of VA service-connected disability policy, further analysis is necessary to confirm adequate access to healthcare for denied veterans.

Keywords

Military Veterans Ambulatory care Health services accessibility Disability Compensation Clinical social work 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States Government.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York (Outside the USA) 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  • Dennis Adrian Fried
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
  • Bart K. Holland
    • 4
  • Marian Passannante
    • 2
  • William E. Halperin
    • 2
  • Drew Helmer
    • 1
    • 4
  1. 1.War Related Illness and Injury Study CenterVA-New Jersey Healthcare SystemEast OrangeUSA
  2. 2.Department of EpidemiologyRutgers, The State University of New JerseyNewarkUSA
  3. 3.OceanUSA
  4. 4.New Jersey Medical SchoolRutgers, The State University of New JerseyNewarkUSA

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