Prescription Drug Refills

Our physician knows we travel all year. We just phone them and they will fax in renewals on our subscriptions to Express Scripts. They'll do this for a year, then want to see us in person again.

Thank you for your reply. So you have a PCM with Tricare Standard? You are fulltiming, but return to the same Dr. each year? How did you choose where that Dr. is located? We changed over from Tricare Prime to Standard when we left Alaska because we knew we wouldn't be going back there for awhile. Our military Dr. wrote our prescriptions for a year, we sent them to Escripts who sent our meds to our mail forwarding service when they came due. The Dr. we saw here yesterday just couldn't fathom our lifestyle and actually showed disbelief when we told him that there are thousands of people just like us full timing. He refused to issue prescriptions for longer than three months without us staying in the area permanently. This is our first experience with this and I must say it's been pretty unsettling. We don't want to have to see a new Dr. every three months, with more blood work no doubt, to get our prescriptions renewed. And although we can do it if necessary, we prefer not to be tied down to one location that we HAVE to be in each year. That was our reasoning behind looking for a military facility that sees Tricare Standard patients.

BTW, we have a 42'QBH Phaeton w/Honda CR-V.

I'm going to guess it will be difficult to find a doctor that will renew scripts without seeing you face2face at least once a year.

But, have you enrolled in VA clinic? That might be an answer as then your history will be available to any VA doctor. Otherwise, might be a good idea to find a Tricare doctor in a area you like and are willing to visit once a year. Best placee to find that is near any military base. Most doctors near a base take it because so many militray have family.

Of note, you mentioned Hanscomb - well, Providence RI VA is pretty good service compared to many others. Stay away from Jacksonville FL VA.

Thanks for your reply. We have pretty much come to that conclusion as far as being willing to go back each year, but we are going into the TriCare office tomorrow and talk to them. It just kinda frosts me that Tricare wants you to use MTF to save money and gives you a list of clinics that supposedly accept Tricare Standard, but when you contact those clinics they don't actually accept Tricare Standard. It's left up to the individual clinics as to whether they choose to accept Tricare Standard Patients and most of the military clinics are so short handed that they can hardly handle the active duty. If the military clinics can't accept Tricare Standard patients, Tricare shouldn't post that they do on their web site. Off my soap box now.

Our Tricare Standard PCM is outside of Phoenix, AZ. They are used to RV'ing "snowbirds". We visit there each November or December to visit our daughter, get medical check-ups, and the RV serviced. Then we head to the desert, Texas, or elsewhere for the rest of the winter. However, we work in Northern California during the summer, so we're on the west coast already.

Just wanted to make sure fellow vets know that once you hit the 60% total disability (all ailments combined) you have NO co-pay on prescriptions, are eligible for eye exams and glasses, and in many states free or reduced fishing/hunting licenses and free custom vehicle plates for one vehicle. Be sure you read eligibility levels for your state.