SCAADL

Special Compensation for Assistance with Activities of Daily Living - S.C.A.A.D.L.

This special compensation is not necessarily brand new, but it's something that is not well known and is also something that could help a number of individuals - not necessarily a soldier wounded in combat.

A long story short, SCAADL is compensation paid to a service member who has a permanent injury or illness that is classified as catastrophic.  It's intention is to offset and prevent loss of income while meeting the needs of the service member.  In many situations, the caregiver (wife, mother, friend, etc.) for the service member has to leave their job, cut back their hours or in many cases hire additional help for when they need to continue working to ensure the safety of their job. 

SCAADL has the potential to help a large number of individuals, but from our family's personal experience, many families and individuals are falling through the cracks.  Let me rephrase: our soldiers, injured in the line of duty... soldiers injured fighting for our freedom... are missing out.  I'm not okay with that.

Josh (my husband) was injured down range in a mounted IED explosion last October (2011).  He was hospitalized for about 3 weeks and then med evac'd back to his duty station in mid November.  Upon being discharged, our Warriors in Transition Battalion (WTB) should have started the ball rolling for our SCAADL application.  In fact, we didn't know it even existed for months.   When we finally learned that we qualified (a no-brainer considering his multiple spinal injuries), there was quite a bit of confusion as to WHO was responsible for filling out the application.  Was it the Nurse Case Manager (NCM)?  Was it his Primary Care Manager (PCM)?  Another long story short, 4 months passed before an application was submitted.  The hardest 4 months of Josh's recovery - when he required the most assistance (you name it, he couldn't do it)... and we missed out because our WTB chain of command dropped the ball.

Much is very specific to each individual case, but here are a few things we learned:
1. It's a law - not an allotment given by the Army, so there's less room for fudging and things are pretty cut and dry. 
2. There are three tiers of compensation: High, Medium, Low that are each tied to a monthly compensation amount of roughly $1,600; $1,000; and $400 respectively.
3. The NCM should fill out the application in which the head physician will then sign off on.  At least that's how it finally worked out for us.  The Occupational Therapist might know all that is concerned with the ADLs, but the NCMs usually work very closely with both the service member AND the physicians. 
4.  This is also time sensitive.  There are specific situations where inpatient care does not disqualify you, but generally speaking, it's given to outpatient individuals.  Once initially discharged from inpatient care, the application should be submitted as quickly as possible.  What we've been told is that they will not back-date a form and when our first was submitted, the email that came back from MEDCOM said that a date older than 2 weeks would not be accepted.  We have not seen this anywhere in writing, but this is what we were told.  In fact, we have yet to find in writing anything about the back dating.  The point: get it done asap.

Something else to keep in mind:  like I mentioned earlier, this doesn't just apply to our combat wounded.  While Josh was in the PT clinic for a session, I ran into an individual that we'd seen a number of times before during his sessions.  Turns out, she was permanently injured "in the line of duty".  Her story is unique because of her "job" but NOT uncommon.  She applied to move over to the WTB but is having trouble.  I worry that because of the delay and the lack of knowledge surrounding the SCAADL, that she too will fall through the cracks.  She is here alone.  No family.  Her co-workers are a team that travel quite a bit.  This is an individual that would surely benefit from the special compensation.  Am I sure that she would qualify for it?  Not 100% positive, but knowing that her injuries are catastrophic by definition, and that it's permanent, I'd be willing to gamble.  I photocopied the info and suggested she look into it. 

What about the other soldiers that were injured or med-evac'd with Josh?  They have fallen through the cracks as well and this breaks my heart.  I got a letter the other day from the wife of a wounded warrior - her husband was combat injured long before SCAADL was enacted into law and she is JUST now hearing about it. 

Currently, we're looking for maximum visibility on this issue through MEDCOM... and frankly, anyone that will listen, read, etc.  We've received company level support from within the WTB, but the buck stops there. THE biggest advocate in this issue has been our local Ombudsman. If you go to your health care providers and they know little about what's going on - go to your Ombudsman. If your local representative is anything like ours, then they will take very good care of you. 

Thanks to this Ombudsman, we're fighting to create that visibility.  But like anything else, it will take time to fix.  Are you a wounded warrior?  Do you know one?  Are you a caregiver of a service member?  Please, please look into the fact sheets and ask your health care providers.... and spread the word!

Here are a few helpful links to info on the SCAADL

Fact Sheet from the Warriors in Transition Command:
http://wtc.army.mil/factsheets/wtc_SCAADL_fact_sheet.pdf
SCAADL Calculator:
http://militarypay.defense.gov/Tools/scaadl.html
DoD Instruction on SCAADL:
http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/134112p.pdf
...and to get REALLY technical, use this link to search the United States Code - Title 37, Section 439
http://uscode.house.gov/search/criteria.shtml