Tricare to allow troops and families to access urgent-care clinics without referral

Tricare beneficiaries enrolled in Prime will be able to go to an urgent care clinic without a referral under a new program that starts May 23, according to the Defense Health Agency, according to Military Times.

An Urgent Care Pilot Program will allow military health beneficiaries in Tricare Prime, Tricare Prime Remote or Tricare Young Adult-Prime to receive care at an urgent care center without a referral up to two times a fiscal year, with Tricare picking up most of the bill.

Currently, beneficiaries can be seen for acute conditions only by their primary care manager or by referral to an urgent care center or other physician.

The Defense Department was required to create the new program under the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act. The three-year project, which will run until May 23, 2019, allows patients with a nonemergency illness or injury to be seen in their community when they can't get an appointment with their primary care doctor.

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A House bill would pay injured veterans who lose their reproductive organs in combat or a service-related accident $20,000 to start a family or use however they want.

Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., introduced legislation Monday that would compensate veterans for the “loss or loss of use of creative organs,” to help veterans who can't have children as a result of a service-connected condition, according to Military Times.

Under the bill, veterans would receive $10,000 in two lump-sum special compensation payments — funds over and above the disability compensation the veteran receives — to be used "at the veteran's discretion."

According to Miller, chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, the legislation is designed to give former troops with devastating injuries the funds needed for medical treatment or adoption services.

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Gen. John Hyten’s office is 7,000 miles from the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, but the men and women he commands help guide just about every bomb dropped on an Islamic State target. Still, it’s another theater entirely that worries the head of Air Force Space Command — and top Pentagon leaders, according to DefenseOne.

From Peterson Air Force Base near the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Hyten oversees the 38,000 airmen who operate their service’s diverse constellation of spy, communications, and global positioning satellites that support and enable military operations around the world. He also oversees the Air Force’s cyber forces.

Now Hyten is being considered for another job: Air Force chief of staff. Should that happen, he would be the first non-pilot to lead the service since it was created in 1947. His selection would underscore that Pentagon leaders expect future wars to be fought not just terrestrially, but in space and online.

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U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert A. McDonald said his agency will locate its national archives in Ohio by using two historic buildings on the VA clinic’s Dayton campus.

In a speech Tuesday before Dayton civic and business leaders here, McDonald said the agency’s massive archives will be housed in the national headquarters facility which was built in 1871, and the clubhouse which dates to 1881. He described the two buildings as a “fitting home” for the agency’s records.

The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that the two buildings will undergo a major rehabilitation at a projected cost of about $20 million, which will include both government and private money. The old headquarters is currently vacant.

This story was originally published April 13, 2016 at 10:36 AM with the headline "Tricare to allow troops and families to access urgent-care clinics without referral."