Tri-Care Prime vs Standard

What works for us.....The lady of the RV is a 40% service-connected Vet. The man of the RV is retired 24 years Army. We both use the VA for primary care and Tricare Standard for emergencies on the road. Have been fulltimers since August 2004. Had med. emergency in 2006 while in Florida and using Tricare for the Urgent Care Clinic worked great. FYI let Tricare pay their part first to the civilian Med. folks before you pay them your share...They get confused easy.... :

Our meds. are thru the VA and are easily ordered over the phone and mailed...and the post office will forward mail ordered meds...at least they do for us.

I know this doesn't fit for your situation, but it is an example of using Tricare Standard on the road.

Great article Larry. Some of the links are dead, but you don't really need them. Got me thinking I may go ahead and switch to Standard now. I am being seen at a military clinic under Prime and it seems it's getting harder and harder to get an appointment. I don't really blame them though, they have their hands full dealing with the active duty/dependents. I am just glad to health insurance coverage.

Because this is a very important issue, I took the time to read each post carefully before making mine. All of them are accurate. But know that it would not be totally appropriate to make your decision based on them. Each of those who provided helpful and accurate information are probably doing so based in part on their own situation…myself included. I think you could get the decision down to three points.

1- No gamble, complete coverage, and paying the price for that peace of mind.
2- Take a nominal chance with different selected coverages based on your/spouse needs.
3- Take a gamble and pay the least amount of money for coverage.

As Bill said, every situation is different and as Larry mentioned there is a catastrophic cap.
This I can tell you with certainty. Read the rules on getting medical care outside of your regional area if you are going to have that particular restriction based on your options. Tricare will not make exception to the rules.

As for your biggest challenge, I’d suggest that you look into the Tricare Mail Order Pharmacy program (TMOP) or if disabled the VA mail order meds program. Getting meds when I’m on the road is probably the simplest thing about veteran’s health coverage.

There are a lot of speed bumps associated with getting health care where and when ever we RV’rs need it, but I don’t mind negotiating them considering that the cost of our care is budget dust compared with what non-vets have to pay for the luxury.

Thanks all for the words so far. Want to clarify one thing re meds. "Normal" meds are not the problem. CVS etc handle those nicely. It is Class 2 Pain meds (high test stuff) that is the challenge. For good reasons, they are under a lot of scrutiny and difficult to refill (if not impossible). Every 30 days we are in a panic mode. But, this is not a Tri-Care Prime vs standard etc issue...its a DEA issue and above the pay grade of any of us.

I get my hi test stuff through the VA and it is mailed to me. When I move I call my VA med center and change my temperary address to where I am and in my case I either call or e-mail my provider and he puts the RX in the system for me. Maybe in your wife's case your primary provider can mail you a RX for the hi test to you to get filled where you are at.

Maybe in your wife's case your primary provider can mail you a RX for the hi test to you to get filled where you are at.

Nope...we have to have a friend go to the Pain Doc (a civilian), pick up the written script and then they FedEx it to us. DEA won't let them mail it or call it in to CVS etc. We've beaten this dog to no avail. Plus she has to see her doc every 3 months. I understand the reason for all this (dope heads who ruin it for all) but it makes it difficult.