So my husband is AF. We have tricare prime. My son will be going home for the summer to his dad's house. My question is do I need to change pcm for him there or do referrels to a doc there? It is crazy to keep changing pcms. He will be there for about 6 to 8 wks.
Will he need to go to the doctor for any routine care while he's there? If not, then I would just keep his PCM and he can get a referral to urgent care or just go to an ER if he gets sick or injured while he's there. Make sure his dad has his insurance card and his military ID if he's old enough for one. If you have any concerns about how long he's staying, then call Tricare just to confirm that's okay. I doubt they'd want you to change his PCM though for just a visit - that'd be no different than me changing my son's PCM when he goes to stay with his grandparents, it makes no sense. I would just be prepared - like I said have his paperwork, look ahead or call Tricare and see what urgent care participating providers are in his dad's area (getting a network dentist's # wouldn't hurt either), and give the list with the ID card to your son's dad.
Its usually recommended that if your going to be somewhere for more than 30 days to make sure you update your DEERS info and also region. Just to be on the safe side, I would contact Tricare and see what would be best. The last thing you want to do is fight with people to get your son an authorization to be seen by a Dr if he needs to be.
You are supposed to change regions if they will be there any longer than 30 days and if something happens that he has to be seen a few times, they could deny paying those bills if you didn't change. It's really not that big of a deal so to be safe, I'd do it the right way.
Yeah but here's the thing - if it's say 6 weeks ... the insurance doesn't even kick in until the next month! Tricare itself advises you to NOT change while you're actually traveling, or before, in case you need a referral for an emergency incurred while traveling. So if they changed regions the day the kid arrived at his dad's - that could quite possibly be only 2 weeks of coverage in the new region, and would then have to do the whole thing to go back home. OP, unless you time it perfectly, it would quite possibly be a waste of paperwork and Tricare's time. I would really just call them to be sure.
I have never changed it and DD would go to her BIO dads for 6 weeks every summer- there were a few trips to the ER for an ear infection or the once possible broken arm ( fell out of a tree) and we never had any trouble with tricare paying for those.
we did it for 7 summers, 4 christmas breaks, and 4 spring breaks.
Originally posted by theainjmtant: Yeah but here's the thing - if it's say 6 weeks ... the insurance doesn't even kick in until the next month! Tricare itself advises you to NOT change while you're actually traveling, or before, in case you need a referral for an emergency incurred while traveling.
That's not quite accurate. It can take that long when you are initially enrolling, but when you are just changing areas, it takes place immediately if you go in to a Tricare office or if you Fax in the paperwork. We've dealt with this for the last 2 years that our son has been away at school. Even now that we are in the same Tricare region, when he comes up here for the summer (only 2 hours away) I have to change his PCM or they *can* deny paying those bills for basic visits. We couldn't get him an appointment on post due to this initially. I didn't realize we had to change anything the first time since he was still in the same region.
If someone chooses not to change that's up to them. What the rules are and what people have had work out okay for them are two different things a lot of times.
