LVMAC Tidbit — TRICARE Says Walking Is Not Good for Your Health (Service)

Walk-in Service to TRICARE Service Centers within the United States is ending 1 April, this year.  TRICARE service centers overseas are not affected. Joint Base Dix-Maguire-Lakehurst’s service center is among the 189 facilities affected. 

The Department of Defense (DoD) states this $250 million cost-savings move (over the next five years) will not affect the TRICARE medical benefits or health care service.

It revealed 50% of the visits to the centers are for in- and out-processing and requests to change primary care providers, and the rest involve billing-related questions. The numbers involved were not provided.  Meanwhile, TRICARE gets about 38,000 hits per day on its website (not necessarily from customers).

The good part is that officials have run tests to ensure the website and call center can handle the expected increase in volume.

The TRICARE Service Centers have been around since the 1990s and it has paid contractors to staff them, but in DoD’s view technology has progressed to the stage where customers who need the type of assistance that was being done in these walk-in service centers can now quickly and efficiently receive help online or via phone.

Beneficiaries can get more information and sign up for updates at http://www.tricare.mil/tsc.

Source: <http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=121473>

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As of 13 January 2014