“They are trained to do that,” Thomas said.

In addition, he said, inconsistency was brought to the process, because, while forensic psychiatrists at MAMC may evaluate troops, this specialty was not necessarily available at other installations. “It introduced some variance in how we were evaluating these soldiers for their medical evaluation boards. We can’t have that,” he said.

Officials denied that cost had anything to do with the forensic psychiatry evaluations. “From a leadership side, that didn’t play in it at all,” said 1^st Corps Commanding General Lt. Gen. Robert Brown.

It was determined that 450 soldiers from Madigan needed to come in for reevaluation, according to Thomas. MAMC continues to review diagnoses of troops with PTSD who had been evaluated by forensic psychiatry.

In addition, efforts are in place to improve the evaluation process across the Army, officials said. For example, a task force on behavioral health is developing a corrective-action plan to ensure diagnosis and evaluation best practices are in place across the Army. The results of those efforts are expected in December.

Officials acknowledged the congressional role in bringing problems with the evaluation process to the Army’s attention.

“The fact that Senator Murray’s constituents brought their concerns to her regarding our evaluation process provided the impetus to look at our entire system,” Austin said in his statement.

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