Top U. S. officials in Washington’s domain obtained a preferential remedy from a little-known physical care program run by the military, potentially jeopardizing the care of other patients, adding active-duty service members, Pentagon researchers say.
White House officials, senior military and other national security officials, retired military officers, and members of their family circle have all benefited. Washington’s elite can simply skip the lines to fill prescriptions, book appointments through special call centers, and get prime parking and escorts to the military. hospitals and other facilities, adding Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, according to the Pentagon’s inspector general.
Through a White House unit, government workers were routinely allowed to get care under pseudonyms, without offering home addresses or insurance information. For some of them, care was free, and Walter Reed had no way to charge for it or waive the fee. .
The so-called executive medicine program described in a January report by the Pentagon’s inspector general. The investigation has drawn media attention for losing sight of a history of lax prescribing practices and poor controls of potent drugs, including opioids, within the White House Medical Department. Unit, an army unit that deals with the president, vice president, and others on the grounds of the White House.
But the White House Medical Unit is just the tip of a larger executive medicine program, aimed at providing VIP treatments to senior government and military officials. Although the program is largely meant to accommodate the busy schedules of top government officials, privileges have increased. It allowed many patients to retire.
According to data from late 2019 and early 2020, according to the IG report, 80% of high-level doctors in the National Capital Region were retired members of the military and members of their family circle.
Some services “provided access to care to executive medicine patients than to active-duty military patients with acute needs,” according to the report, adding that prioritizing medical care based on seniority over medical needs “increases the threat to patient fitness and safety. “Non-executive patient population.
Much of the report is written in the past tense, which makes it unclear whether all of the practices described continue. Before the report was made public, a draft was reviewed by the White House Medical Unit for more than 3 years, from May 2020, when Donald Trump was in office, until last July. The delay is not explained in the report, and White House spokespeople did not respond to questions about this article.
A spokesman for the inspector general’s office, Deputy Inspector General Reishia Kelsey, declined to elaborate on the report. A Pentagon spokesman, James P. Adams, declined to comment.
In a reaction included in the inspector general’s report, a Pentagon official said “new procedures were already in place through the White House medical unit. “The report detailed those changes.
At Walter Reed, the program is presented to members of the Cabinet; members of Congress; Supreme Court Justices; active and retired generals and general officers and their beneficiaries; members of the Senior Executive Service who have retired from the military; secretaries, undersecretaries and undersecretaries of the Ministry of Defence and army departments; certain foreign army officers; and Medal of Honor recipients.
Walter Reed’s executive medicine program meets the “time, confidentiality and safety requirements” of executive work, the hospital says on its website. The IG report makes clear that the program has at times granted ordinary privileges to the government’s most senior elite officials.
For example, an anonymous executive medicine patient asked for a prescription for an unspecified “controlled drug” that needed to be refilled two weeks early and complained when the Fort Belvoir Community Hospital pharmacy said it wasn’t allowed.
Hospital officials told the hospital to comply with the request as requested. According to the report, this task required around 30 hours of additional work.
Controlled medications are prone to abuse, and some, such as opioids, can be addictive. The Ministry of Defense’s physical fitness policy calls for minimizing the use of opioids and prescribing them when indicated.
A spokesperson for Fort Belvoir Hospital, now known as Alexander T. Augusta, said each and every patient is treated with the same attitude and treated with the care they deserve.
Spokeswoman Reese Brown said the establishment shows the military’s deference to senior officials because of their rank. For example, they don’t have to humiliate themselves with the general patient population.
The center’s online page lists an “Executive Medicine, Health and Wellness Clinic” for legal patients, adding circle members of eligible family members.
Brown said he was not aware of the inspector general’s account of the order renewal and had no information about it.
The report states that at one unidentified pharmacy, “all pharmacies expressed frustration with the prioritization and fulfillment of general medicine prescriptions. This prioritization of general medicine prescriptions has distracted the pharmacist from filling prescriptions for patients diagnosed with more pressing conditions. “
Executive medicine is also provided at the Pentagon’s DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic, Fort McNair Army Health Clinic, and the U. S. Army Health Clinic. U. S. Andrew Rader, according to the report.
The Inspector General that the Ministry of Defense take measures such as building controls for the billing of senior non-military officials for outpatient services.
The assistant secretary of defense for health affairs agreed, but said the branch would address “longstanding White House Medical Unit practices, the Department of Defense’s support for senior non-military U. S. government officials on health care, and the need for strict security protocols. “to protect the suitability and protection of White House leaders. “
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