My Life As A Military Spouse

NMFA Updates

The 2010 census will make its way to your mailbox in early March. With many service members deployed, military families may have questions regarding how to answer certain questions. The first question on the census is, “How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment or mobile home on April 1, 2010?” If your service member spouse is overseas, then the person receiving the questionnaire should not count the spouse that is overseas. The spouse overseas will be counted based on home of record provided by the Defense Manpower Data Center to the Census Bureau. Likewise, military families and service members living overseas will not receive a questionnaire and will be counted based on home of record provided by the Defense Manpower Data Center. If your spouse is on a military vessel with a United States homeport, then they should be counted as part of your household. If your spouse is on a military vessel from a foreign homeport, then they should not be counted as part of your household.

Military families may not necessarily be counted based on where they vote. If the service member lives in the barracks in the U.S., the service member is counted based on the barrack location. Service members and families who live either on base or off base in the U.S., but not in the barracks are counted based on the residence where they live.

Contract extensions issued by TRICARE Management Activity (TMA) mean current regional health care contractors, Health Net Federal Services in the North, Humana Military Healthcare Services in the South, and TriWest Healthcare Alliance Corporation in the West, will continue to provide services to beneficiaries until March 31, 2011. Transition to new regional contracts, known as “T-3,” was initially slated for completion by April 1, 2010, but formal protests filed with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) by two of the current contractors put transition activities on hold. Both protests were subsequently sustained by the GAO, and TMA is reevaluating the awards. In addition to the sustained protests filed by Humana and Health Net, UnitedHealth filed an agency-level protest regarding the West Region award to TriWest, which has delayed transition for the entire United States.

A formal transition period of at least 10 months will ensure that beneficiaries and stakeholders get the information they need well in advance, and will allow enough time to establish new processes and test interoperability.

The T-3 contracts announced in July of 2009 are worth an estimated $55.5 billion over the base and five option periods. Aetna Government Health Plans, Hartford, CT, was the contractor selected for the North Region, and UnitedHealth Military & Veterans Services, Minnetonka, MN, was selected in the South Region, while TriWest was retained in the West Region.

Under T-3, the three-region structure in the United States and all of the TRICARE benefit options offered under the current contracts remain the same. T-3 also features incentives encouraging the regional contractors to deliver:

High quality care
Exceptional customer service
Improved preventive care
Increased electronic claims processing
Better program management
Cost savings
Detection of fraud, waste, and abuse

There are also measures to assure network provider, beneficiary and military treatment facility command satisfaction.

posted by LoveMyTanker @ 2:48 PM