Retire Military Tricare

Thanks everyone for all your help. This is a great forum and everyone seems to be pretty friendly - unless you ask an opinion about tires, the best tow vehicle, or college football.

I'm really looking forward to going on the road. I'm still almost four years from that point and I'm already planning. It's like being a kid waiting for Christmas.

What everyone is saying is they used home delivery but not telling you how to set it up. Your doctor will send in your prescriptions to Express Scripts. Then you can go online and set them for "Automatic Home Delivery". You set online the address to ship to. Since we are in a place for a month at a time we have them sent to where ever we are. You can also just have your doctor fax in renewals with out an office visit until they want you to come in for a physical etc. It is much easier than it seems.

I do not know if it has changed as I have not seen anything allowing the use of Walgreens from Tricare Express Scripts. They were not allowed do to improper billing.

mabynack wrote:
Thanks for all the info. I'm a diabetic and the doctor will only give me 3 months at a time to make sure I get my blood work done.

You (and the wife) need to sit down with your primary and specialist doctors and talk about going to a long-term RV lifestyle.

Your medical conditions need to be reasonably stable.

Your doctor can write an order for bloodwork from a national laboratory company (I forget which has the Tricare contract right now - I think it is Quest). You can get bloodwork done many places across the country and your hometown doctor gets the results.

I'm Type 2, but well controlled. Both my primary doctor and the diabetes specialist have my file flagged in their office so that if I call in from the road with an issue - they will call me back. They also make my appointments up to a year in advance if I wish.

Same with my wife.

I do daily blood monitoring, and will call if things are not 'standard'.

mabynack wrote:
I gave up on the VA and started getting seen at the AF Hospital. I wasn't sure if I could use any AF hospital for refills or if I had to come back to Tyndall. I had forgotten about the Express Scripts.

Express Scripts works great - and we are Escapees and use their mail forwarding service. Once we were on the road between several short stays and the DW realized she had run out of a med. We got it at Whiteman AFB.

We carry paper copies of all our prescriptions, and can go to a Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, or almost any military base for an emergency refill. (Provided the military base has the drug in their pharmacy.) If you are getting your drugs from Tyndall, you can almost certainly get them at any large military base/ hospital.

I live close to Tyndall AFB and I have to use the base for my PCM. It's usually just as easy for me to go ahead and get my prescriptions while I'm there.

Are you all aware that Express Scripts handles all Tricare drug programs? Whether you use the online or an outside pharmacy, they are processed through Express Scripts

I use Express Scripts also. Have had no problems.

Thanks for all the info. I'm a diabetic and the doctor will only give me 3 months at a time to make sure I get my blood work done. I tried using the VA Version of Express Scripts and it was a nightmare. You were suppose to mail a postcard back every time you received your meds in the mail. One time I didn't get the card and they refused to send me my meds. I called and the guy who I talked to insisted that there was no workaround if the card was missing. Apparently this had never happened before in the history of the VA. I gave up on the VA and started getting seen at the AF Hospital. I wasn't sure if I could use any AF hospital for refills or if I had to come back to Tyndall. I had forgotten about the Express Scripts.

We've used Express Scripts for years. On a recent trip that lasted longer than we planned, we saw a script coming due for my wife. Using their website, we set up a temporary address for that script only. Worked like a champ, then it all reverted to our normal home address. The KEY is staying proactive, and work those prescriptions before they ship them!
BTW, we are NOT full-timer's, and live 2 miles from an AFB with a pharmacy. But neither one of us wants to wait in that line! Let it come to our mailbox, on time, and generics are free!

We have a mail-forwarding service -- All our medications and mail goes there. They hold it until we call or email and give an address -- then they priority mail or UPS it to us in two-three days.

Cost us $12.00 a month - plus postage to send it.