Bill can help VA deliver better mental care

Roland Segal and Elaine M. Ramos

AZ I See It

Veterans health care reforms are needed.
Congress must not overlook veterans' mental-health needs.
The Ensuring Veterans' Resiliency Act is a good start.

The controversy engulfing the Department of Veterans Affairs strikes close to home. Arizona is home to nearly 530,000 veterans, men and women who have sacrificed for our country and deserve better than monthslong waits for appointments and falsified records.

Arizona’s nearly 530,000 veterans deserve adequate care for mental illness.

It's time to right these wrongs.

Congress is considering needed reforms in VA health care. Bills in the House and Senate are good efforts that have garnered bipartisan support. But the legislation should go further. Our leaders in Washington, D.C., including U.S. Sen. John McCain and Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, have an opportunity to ensure that the significant mental-health needs of our veterans are not overlooked. We urge them to seize this moment.

No matter the branch of service, age or background, it's well documented that our veterans face significant challenges, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance-use disorders. These mental-health issues are real, serious and sadly too often undiagnosed or untreated. Sometimes they are deadly. We know that, across the country, about 8,000 vets take their own lives annually — 22 on average each day — and some happen in Arizona, though they may not make headlines.

But onerous wait times are only part of the picture. In fact, most veterans don't receive adequate treatment for mental illness for another reason: a persistent shortfall of psychiatric physicians in the VA system. The Office of the Inspector General for the VA wrote in 2012 that the department's "greatest challenge has been to hire and retain psychiatrists." But there is hope if our nation levels the playing field and equips the VA with recruitment tools that other top employers have.

The VA, because of how current law is written, isn't able to compete with other federal departments and private-sector employers in attracting talent. Employment incentives, such as medical education loan repayment, are a potent recruitment tool for new hires, including psychiatrists. In Arizona, there are four psychiatric vacancies statewide, and only one is eligible for loan repayment.

The Ensuring Veterans' Resiliency Act (House Resolution 4234/Senate 2425) is a bipartisan plan introduced by Reps. Larry Bucshon, R-Ind., David Scott, D-Ga., and Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska. We strongly support it. While the legislation is in many ways modest, it provides a tool the VA needs — implementation of a pilot project in which the VA recruits a limited number of psychiatrists into long-term employment with competitive medical-school loan-forgiveness incentives.

This bill complements VA reforms Congress is now considering, so as leaders from both chambers reconcile their bills into one, we urge that EVRA is part of the deal.

Every one of Arizona's veterans pledged to defend our country, and now Congress has a chance to defend them — by passing comprehensive reforms of the VA health-care system. Veterans' mental-health needs cannot and should not be overlooked, and a proper workforce is a part of delivering on that promise. EVRA does just that.

Roland Segal is president-elect of the Arizona Psychiatric Society. Elaine M. Ramos is co-chairwoman of the Early Career Psychiatrist Committee of the Arizona Psychiatric Society.