Health Insurance (Anchorage, Kenai: travel, work, services)

[Wayne Greene]

My wife and I are looking into moving to the Kenai Peninsula. We haven't been able to find a single family practitioner doctor that accepts TRI-CARE insurance. We thought with all the retired military in the area there would be no problem. Are we looking in the wrong places or are there really no tri-care doctors available. Take care.

[mal_flisk]

I would call the Tri-care center on Elmendorf. They have to do all referrals outside of the 50 mile limit anyway.

[PR2CA2AK]

You have to go near the military bases. Try Anchorage, which is 60 mi away but it has Elmendorf AFB and Ft. Richardson (Army base). If the city has a military discount for almost everything, I'd assume that all doctors accept tri care.

[upstream]

I think, key word being think, that a provider who accepts Medicare, by law has to accept Tricare.

The problem is this, Tricare pays less for services than Medicare, and requires three times the paperwork that Medicare does to make payment on a claim, then Tricare resists making the full payment without additional information from the provider. So, providers know this, and will try if at all possible to not serve Tricare recipients (i.e. "we have no appts available or we're not accepting new patients").

I'm talking about locales outside of large military presences. Around bases, it isn't a problem.

[cobolt]

You may want to be aware of the new changes going into affect regarding Tricare. If they get their way, then alot of people outside a 50 mile military base radius will be affected--meaning again more out of your pocket. I don't recall the thread, but go to this site Military.com Forums - Powered by eve community and do a search for the Tricare change they are proposing I believe sometime this year. It basically boils down to reducing your already earned benefits and making you pay/travel more for what you do have

Cobolt