Military Update: 'Special pays' reform to begin with health professions

[unhappycamper]

Military Update 'Special pays' reform to begin with health professions
By Tom Philpott, Special to Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, October 31, 2008

The military medical community, battling shortages in war-critical health professionals including psychiatrists and clinical care nurses, will be the first community in the Department of Defense to use more flexible, responsive ‘special pay’ authorities enacted by Congress nearly a year ago.

Other communities -- including nuclear and aviation, the enlisted force and the officer force – will see the department’s schedule for moving them under new special pay ceilings in a report due to Congress by Jan. 31.

Pay experts long have criticized the hodge-podge of more than 65 special and incentive pays enacted over the decades, many of them with payment levels and eligibility requirements spelled out in statute.

The rigidity of that practice became a very obvious problem for the services as they went to war in two theaters with an all-volunteer force, and found that their mix of skills had to be reshaped quickly to meet war needs.

The enemy’s use of improvised explosive devices, for example, and the length of current conflicts that sent troops back to Iraq and Afghanistan again and again, has created a need more psychiatrists and psychologists to diagnose and treat post-traumatic stress disorder.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=58519