Health benefits questions

[bowtieman81]

I wanted to pose a couple questions. I am enlisting in January 2009 and want to make sure my wife is taken care of.

I have been doing research on Tricare, and it looks like we have 2 options for my wife: Tricare Prime Remote and Tricare Standard and Extra. Does anyone have any recommendations/experience with either of these options? It looks like she will be under 1 of these plans for about 18 months. My wife is staying in Illinois until I graduate SQT and get a permanent station.

Also, with regards to the healthcare, do the benefits start immediately when I enlist? Is there a lag period? I just want to make sure if something happens to her while I am in boot that everything is taken care of.


Thanks.

[xjswife]

Hi Pete,

I am on Tricare Prime and it has been a good experience thus far. I have been on this plan since March. (I am living in NY while my husband is stationed in CA.)

I would encourage your wife to contact some local offices and see if they accept the coverage and if it is a commonly used plan. I am lucky, I live near a very large Army base and so Tricare Prime is very familiar to the medical offices here. My annual physical and a subsequent visit were handled with very little paperwork and there was no co-pay. My prescription co-pay is $3, and lab work (I have a minor thyroid condition) was FREE. (Which was amazing to me, because I am used to getting bombarded with fees on these tests.)

A last recommendation: make sure your wife has her military ID before you leave. As I mentioned, I live near a large military base and am fortunate that my father and brothers are all employed on base. Getting my ID was easy -- but I have heard from other wives that is not always the case.

I'm not sure about the lag time between enlistment and benefits coverage. My husband was enlisted before we were married and I also had back-up coverage via my employer. Hope someone else can speak to that.

[bowtieman81]

Hi Pete,

I am on Tricare Prime and it has been a good experience thus far. I have been on this plan since March. (I am living in NY while my husband is stationed in CA.)

I would encourage your wife to contact some local offices and see if they accept the coverage and if it is a commonly used plan. I am lucky, I live near a very large Army base and so Tricare Prime is very familiar to the medical offices here. My annual physical and a subsequent visit were handled with very little paperwork and there was no co-pay. My prescription co-pay is $3, and lab work (I have a minor thyroid condition) was FREE. (Which was amazing to me, because I am used to getting bombarded with fees on these tests.)

A last recommendation: make sure your wife has her military ID before you leave. As I mentioned, I live near a large military base and am fortunate that my father and brothers are all employed on base. Getting my ID was easy -- but I have heard from other wives that is not always the case.

I'm not sure about the lag time between enlistment and benefits coverage. My husband was enlisted before we were married and I also had back-up coverage via my employer. Hope someone else can speak to that.

Thanks for the reply xjs, I appreciate it.

It looks like to be on Tricare Prime my wife would have to be within a 1 hour drive of a miltary base. Unfortunately where we live that is not the case. The nearest base with medical facilities more than 2 hours away. We do have some very good civilian hospitals here.

Thanks for the tip about the ID...I never really would have thought about that. If you have any other suggestions feel free to post them.

My current employer gives us the option of continuing her benefits if we pay the monthly fee. I am thinking about doing that at least while I am in boot to make sure she is covered somehow.

xjs, would you mind sending me a PM with your email? My wife has been looking for someone in your shoes to ask a couple questions to.

Thanks again.

[dupeeswife]

Well, you should be able to just get the authorization through tricare and it shouldn't be a problem if you live that far away from the nearest MTF. Tricare will assign you a PCM in that area who takes tricare. Go look on the tricare website under bene's and find a provider in the area. Call tricare up and talk to them and explain the situation. I think you'll be okay because I've lived 30 minutes from 2 MTFs and was still able to see a civi out in town. Honestly if your just enlisting and yall are married you need prime. You need to save all of the money you can get. It covers everything and the co pay on prescriptions is really reallly cheap. If she has an emergency she just goes to the nearest ER or urgent care center there is and make sure that she calls tricare the next day to let them know she went and its taken care of. ;)