Health Insurance While On The Road

Health insurance while on the road is covered for us through the VA between the age of 62 and 65 our Medicare kicks in once we are 65.  Both of us served in the Air Force on active duty when younger and we have Honorable Discharges, because of this we earned Veterans Benefits for life which include basic medical coverage.

We have been using the VA as our primary provider since moving to Rock Springs they have a clinic be side the College and Hospital we worked at.  While on the road we have been studying up on how to utilize the VA while on the road.  They have an office called VA Travel that will handle us while on the road.  We will let you know how that goes as we use it.  As for our VA clinic providers and staff it has been great.  We even had some major surgery during our time here with few issues.

While on the road we will try to plan our routine check ups with our home provider and if we can not be in the area for these we will work with VA Travel to have it done at a VA medical facility near our current location.  We also have an HSA that we paid into through my employers for years now and will use these tax free funds for any non emergency needs while on the road and away from any VA facility.

Other related notes

• Dental Insurance does not come with us in retirement so we signed up for one of the two VA approved dental plans at a monthly cost to us of around $80.00
• The VA provides us with our eye check ups and glasses
• In the March 2018 American Legion Magazine (page 20) there is a nice article called " VA to pay partial non-VA emergency claims by Tom Philpott". It talks about some court cases that the VA is now complying with, which improves our medical coverage and reduces our medical costs by using the VA service we have earned.
• In talking with VA Travel and our Provider we will try and do our winter check-up via Tele-a Health.  This will mean we will have to have our lab work drawn at a different VA location.  For our summer check-up we plan to return to our home clinic for our lab and check-ups.
• My canned O2 refills will be set up through VA Travel while on the road with local O2 providers in the area.