Traumatic Brain Injury Program

I met today with the Traumatic Brain Injury (“TBI”) support group that meets in Cedarhurst. The timing of the meeting was interesting because I had just seen the ABC News piece earlier in the morning regarding TBIs, which was a follow up to the piece on Bob Woodruff who suffered a TBI while reporting in Iraq.

According to the news item, veterans returning from the Middle East with TBIs are not getting the medical treatment that they deserve. Moreover, it seems that the veterans with TBIs are discovering latent problems that are not apparent for a substantial period of time after the injury. Furthermore, it has become readily apparent that the TBIs are requiring prolonged treatment and care.

Among many other things that I discussed with the TBI group, I pointed out that is that a claimant becomes eligible for Medicare 24 months after Social Security finds that he or she became disabled. As noted above, since TBIs often require prolonged medical care, Medicare is frequently needed as a means of obtaining medical services.