By the Numbers: 28 March 2022
270%
The percentage increase in VA mental health visits by "former service members with an other-than-honorable (OTH) discharge compared to FY 2020," according to an article on the VA'a VAntage Point blog -- Dramatic increase in mental health services to other-than-honorable discharge Veterans.
This marked increase was due to a number of factors.
First, in 2017, VA began providing emergency mental health coverage for former service members with OTH administrative discharges. In 2018, Public Law 115-141 authorized VA to provide an initial mental health assessment and subsequent mental or behavioral health care services to certain former service members. This included those who served in the reserve component.
Following the expansion of eligibility criteria beginning in FY 2017, VA began seeing gradual increases in the number of former service members with OTH who seek VA mental health services. In FY 2018, 1,651 former service members with an OTH discharge received mental health treatment, three times more than the 648 treated in 2017.
270%
The percentage increase in VA mental health visits by "former service members with an other-than-honorable (OTH) discharge compared to FY 2020," according to an article on the VA'a VAntage Point blog -- Dramatic increase in mental health services to other-than-honorable discharge Veterans.
This marked increase was due to a number of factors.
First, in 2017, VA began providing emergency mental health coverage for former service members with OTH administrative discharges. In 2018, Public Law 115-141 authorized VA to provide an initial mental health assessment and subsequent mental or behavioral health care services to certain former service members. This included those who served in the reserve component.
Following the expansion of eligibility criteria beginning in FY 2017, VA began seeing gradual increases in the number of former service members with OTH who seek VA mental health services. In FY 2018, 1,651 former service members with an OTH discharge received mental health treatment, three times more than the 648 treated in 2017.