Tricare question
paulinaramirez
member
so i am going to california to stay with my parents for a few months while my husband is deployed.... Now, how do i go about setting up doctors appointments for my son and myself ahead of time... i would like to have them set up so that when i get down there (hopefully in the next 2 or three weeks) i can already just have appointments waiting for us. Would i have to talk to tricare about this? or do i just find a hospital that accepts tricare and talk to them? how does it work and has anyone ever had something like this come up....
My son is 2 weeks old and is due for his two month appointment and such in 6 weeks but i want to be able to schedule that ahead of time. and i would have to find a doc that i can go to in order to monitor my blood pressure since i had Gestational hypertension and am still dealing with it now... Thanks 
Re: Tricare question
I've never been away from my base more then a few weeks of vacation time and would just go to a near by ER if needed.. so not sure from personal experience. However, my friend left for 8 months while her husband was deployed to go back home and she had to switch tricare regions. Once she did that she could set up appointments at a doctors office that accepted her tricare plan or travel to the closest base to get treatment.
I'm not 100% sure if you'd need to do that, but I'd check with Tricare to be sure. Rather check and set things up properly then have to pay a bill.
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If you have TRICARE Prime, you cannot make medical appointments outside of your region and in most cases outside of your Catchment area. The reason being, you must be seen by your PCM - especially for any referrals.
You will have to disenroll in from your Prime MCSC and reenroll in the new region. And you cannot start making appointments until you are fully enrolled in the new region.
And TRICARE may not do this for you if you are only visiting, not moving there for the entire time of your DH's deployment. They follow where you claim residency, just like they do for your BAH.
My husband is in Virgina, and I recently moved to Louisiana. This is two different regions under Tri-Care. This is how everything went for me. (I'm also on Prime).
The week before my move home, I called Tricare to ask them where to find the proper paperwork. They told me to print out the enrollment form from the Tricare Humana Military web-site. I printed out the paperwork, and I filled it out. From what Tricare explained to me, the specifically list you and your husband as two different entities that way during a deployment, etc you can get care in two different areas at the same time.
So, first and foremost I called Deers right when I got home, and changed my address with them. I explained to them that I was in my third trimester, and my husband would be EAS-ing during my third trimester, and it was advised to me to move before my due date. I also made sure they were clear that my husband's address was still the same listed on his DEERS (in Virginia since he didn't move with me).
Once DEERS is updated, you send your paperwork to Tricare, they will either assign a PCM for you, or you can find one on their web-site and put that down as your preferred care manager. Tricare will then confirm that you are registered with DEERS under your new address, and will assign you a new PCM in the new Tricare region.
Then you need to make an appointment with your PCM to get any new refferals you need. For instance I had to go see my PCM to get a new OBGYN here in Louisiana. There is no nearby MTF, so I'm seeing Civilian Providers that take Tricare. If there is a nearby MTF you will be assigned to that center instead of a civilian provider.
I don't know what region you're moving from, or if you're switching regions, but if you are that's how things will pretty much go.
From what I understand if you're staying within the same Tricare region, but just moving states, your old doctor should be able to refer you to a new provider within the network. You will still have to change your address with DEERS though.
A peice of advice if you're moving region to region, the Tricare office on base within your MTF doesn't really know how the transfer works (I was given the wrong information) so your best bet is to call Tricare, explain your situation, and they will give you the exact directions, and telephone numbers you need to switch all of your information over. The most important thing you have to do is change your DEERS information right away.
Good luck! It took me about a week and a half to get all of my insurance information switched over, referrals taken care of, and regular visits with my new OB started up.