The VA still does not cover service dogs for veterans with PTSD
December 12, 2019
Despite increasing calls to do so, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs does not cover any costs associated with service dogs for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. The agency has conducted research on whether service dogs are an effective treatment for PTSD, but has not released any of its findings, and has delayed doing so several times.
The VA does cover veterinary care and equipment costs of service dogs for veterans who have physical disabilities, like vision impairment. However, because there is not enough clinical evidence to say that service dogs have a positive effect on PTSD and other mental health patients, the VA does not consider them an effective treatment.
The research being conducted on the effectiveness of service dogs for mental health has encountered numerous issues and has been stalled for years. Meanwhile, studies conducted by Purdue University in 2018 found that, among the 73 veterans who participated in the research, those who had service dogs produced significantly more cortisol, a hormone that helps the body process stress. They also scored an average of 12 points lower on the VA’s standardized PTSD symptom checklist.
While a veteran mental health crisis is in full force, service dogs could be the perfect complement to the medications and therapies that are approved by the VA, like cognitive behavioral therapy such as prolonged exposure and cognitive processing, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)
More than 1.7 million veterans currently receive mental health care through the VA. After a shocking spike in suicide rates among former service members, the VA relaxed its PTSD diagnosis eligibility standards, and there was an unprecedented rise in the number of PTSD-related disability claims. Some of those veterans pay tens of thousands of dollars for a trained service dog out of pocket and also need to pay for the ongoing costs of keeping the dog fed and cared for.