Military.com contributor, Tom Philpott, recently wrote about a TRICARE issue that has surfaced several times over the last couple of years. No, I am not referring to the proposed changes to co-pays and Prime premiums for retirees. The issue is finding the difficulty in finding doctors who are willing to take on TRICARE patients.
The cause? Low reimbursement rates – the amount physicians get from TRICARE for providing services to military beneficiaries. Philpott points out that low reimbursement rates are the number one reason physicians say they turn away TRICARE beneficiaries. This means that access to health care for TRICARE Standard and TRICARE Extra beneficiaries may get harder as Congress looks for ways to meet their deficit-reduction requirements.
Read ‘Debt Law Could Tighten Access to Docs Under TRICARE’ to learn how the debt ceiling law could make health care providers harder to find.
