Tricare - Help needed to protect our benefits for WLS!!

Hi all,

I have been approached by a local television station to discuss my weight loss surgery, more specifically, that it was paid for by Tricare.

Evidently, there are some taxpayer watchdog groups that are going after Tricare for using tax dollars to pay for weight loss surgeries.

The word is that Tricare has spent over three hundred and sixty million dollars paying for weight loss surgeries for military families over the last 10 years.

It is also being claimed that Tricare not only pays for the weight loss surgery, but for tummy tucks and breast lifts after the weight has been lost...

Now those of us who are TriCare know this is not true, but I need your help in putting together the “proof"Â" needed to present the truth. Here is what I’m asking for:

1). Please send me your responses with regard to why TriCare should continue to use taxpayer dollars to pay for weight loss surgeries for our military families. Or, if you don’t think taxpayer dollars should be used, please provide those thoughts as well.

In my case, my husband served this country for 28 years, twice in combat, and we have, numerous times, uprooted our family to begin life anew wherever and whenever we were ordered to. As a result of always having to basically start over with every new military assignment that came every three years for the most part, it did put us behind the power curve financially.

My husband also did not earn the same lucrative salary as his civilian counterparts, nor did I as I was also forced to change jobs and begin all over again with each move, so I view my TriCare insurance coverage as an earned benefit and not a taxpayer handout...

2). Please provide me with any information you may have on what TriCare does pay for after weight loss surgery. If it pays for breast lifts, under what cir****tances? If it pays for tummy tucks, under what cir****tances? Please provide me weblinks to go to for substantiation.

3). Please tell me about medications you were taking and no longer have to take, surgeries that were going to be necessary but no longer are, as a result of your weight loss.

In other words, the case needs to be made for how spending tax dollars for weight loss surgery actually saves tax dollars...

I have to tell you that I am not relishing doing this interview as I am a relatively shy individual; however, I feel this is so important that I am going to do it; however, I need your support and input by Thursday as the interview is on Friday

Thanking both my military and weight loss family for your invaluable help with this...

DEB

Hi Deb,

I don't have tricare but I wanted to let you know I think the watchdogs are full of **** and I am disgusted by what they are trying to do.

Best of luck with the interview!

Chin up!

I'm betting nobody ever accused you of not calling a spade a spade huh?  LoL

You gave me a terrific giggle.  Thanks for sharing because you're right, they are full of it.

 I'll follow up on this tonight.

The cost of obesity  is much greater than the cost of  WLS ever will be. Diabetes, heart attacks, and the list goes on including all the medications that go along with obesity.  The watchdog groups aren't thinking about that.  

We spend how much on vitamins, supplements, protein drinks, special foods, etc. that we are never reimbursed for?  I don't even want to look at my spreadsheet of all these costs.

Ya, I don't see the military signing an insurance policy that doesn't cover WLS.  

Thanks for your input!  I shall be looking for additional when you have time!!!

1).   Please send me your responses with regard to why TriCare should continue to use taxpayer dollars to pay for weight loss surgeries for our military families. Or, if you don’t think taxpayer dollars should be used, please provide those thoughts as well.  

 

Obesity is an epidemic, there is no question about that.  Do I know numbers?  No, but I walk around the grocery store in my town and see the evidence.  Obese people in electric wheelchairs, walking with canes and standing in line at the pharmacy waiting for their 15 different prescriptions.  Thankfully I’ve never been there, but I easily could have if my insurance company (Tricare) did not cover WLS.  I served in the military for 4.5 years and my husband is working on 20 years.  The time both of us have committed to the military is important, at least that is what the country says to us.  If you look at what my husband would make in the civilian sector doing the job he does now, he makes nothing, until you factor in, the health insurance and the housing and the ability to visit exchanges and commissaries.  We count on these things to help us and I feel that they are part of our paycheck.  

 

Not to mention the cost of moving every four years (Coast Guard tries to keep us at most locations for 4+ years).  Sure some of that is covered by the military but all the incidentals are not.  How about being shipped off for training for weeks at a time?  How about the time away from family?  How do you pay a person back for that?  The answer is, quality healthcare with access to the best medicine there is to offer, whether this means surgery, tests, or the best medications.  What is your freedom worth to you?  I want you “general you" to answer that.  We fight for yours, don’t we deserve the best medical care for that service?

 

2).   Please provide me with any information you may have on what TriCare does pay for after weight loss surgery. If it pays for breast lifts, under what cir****tances? If it pays for tummy tucks, under what cir****tances? Please provide me weblinks to go to for substantiation.    

 

I’m sure what I find is the same as what you have found.  I opted not to have plastics.  I’m not making judgments on people who do, I just decided it wasn’t for me.

 

3).   Please tell me about medications you were taking and no longer have to take, surgeries that were going to be necessary but no longer are, as a result of your weight loss.    

 

Before surgery I didn't take much either, if ever.  At some points I took birth control but I think that is about it.

I take Prilosec, which is over the counter and I pay for that myself.  I don’t even ask for a prescription from my Dr. because I anything I can do myself, I do.  I don’t take anything else that would be considered a prescription, unless directed by a doctor or dentist for short amounts of time but Prilosec is the only chronic medication I take.

 

How about Tricare pays for chiropractors?  Heck, they pay for all the pain medications, shoveling Vitamin “M" at soldiers and their dependents like it’s some kind of fix everything.  Some bases have chiro’s but many don’t and if they do, those chiro’s do not see dependents and what about the families who don’t live near major facilities?  We end up forking out our money quite frequently when Tricare kicks back claims and is slow to pay. We don’t want to go to collections, ding up our security clearances, etc so we pay.  I can get a 90 days supply of any narcotic pain reliever there is out there and we all know that they can and do get abused but oh, no..a chiropractor?  Never..

 

 

I hope that helps you.

Thank you so much for taking the time to make such an encompassing response.  Your time, and efforts serve to remind me why I miss the military lifestyle since we have retired, and that is because most military folks do take the time to really care.

Thank you... 

Carol,  Ditto on the chiro thing, I needed to see one for a fall down the stairs that I had before surgery, and they would not cover it at all.  I couldn't afford 180 dollars to consult and then the costs of adjustments weekly, so I took pain relief (Tramadol) and a 30 minute massage (40 dollars) with a therapist instead.  My husband (retired USN CPO) has a fractured pelvis and a resulting 1/2 inch height difference in his legs due to the repair surgery, do you think they could get him in to see a chiro to help adjust him when he is in pain?  ahhhh NOPE. 

 

I keep hearing that TriCare is going to be paying for Chiropractics; however, have to admit I've been hearing it for years and still nothing...

Thanks for taking the time to share what you have!!

My husband did twenty years and TriCare did not pay for my DS. TriCare also refused to pay for my abdominoplasty even though it was medically necessary to repair a hernia that ran the entire length of my abdomen.