Marc Rosen is the Director of Addictions Firm, Steve Martino is the Chief of Psychology, John Sellinger is the Director of Clinical Health Psychology, Brenda Fenton is the Associate Director, Methods and Biostatistics Core, PRIME Center; all at VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven. Kristin Mattocks is the Associate Chief of Staff for Research at the VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System in Leeds. Marc Rosen and Steve Martino are Professors of Psychiatry, John Sellinger is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, and Christina Lazar is a Research Associate, all at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Kristin Mattocks is an Associate Professor of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. Correspondence: Marc Rosen (marc.rosen@yale.edu)
Author disclosures The authors report no actual or potential conflicts of interest with regard to this article.
Disclaimer The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Federal Practitioner, Frontline Medical Communications Inc., the US Government, or any of its agencies.
There have been public calls to improve the evaluation of service-connection claims such that this process includes approaches to engage veterans in treatment.22 Referring veterans to treatment when they come for C&P examinations will likely involve improving relational coordination between the C&P service and other parts of VHA. Nationwide, sites that integrate C&P more fully may have valuable lessons to impart about the benefits of such integration. An important step towards better relational coordination will be clarifying that engaging veterans in VHA care around the time of their C&P examinations is a facility-wide goal.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Brian Linde and Efia James for their perspectives on C&P procedures. This work was supported by the Veterans Integrated Service Network 1 Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC) and National Institute of Health, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health Project # 5UG3AT009758-02. (MIR, SM mPIs).
