Will be living roughly 45 minutes from a military installation in the next few weeks.
Any advice for which would be the better pick for my family? Never really had to think about insurance before and want to know general public opinion and personal experiences.
Thank you.
How much would you say on average someone would spend on select yearly as a family? To include the deductible and co-pays and things.
Not sure the current rates but they should be posted
Fair fair
Select is 100% better. Pick your own doctors within the network and the best part is no referrals are needed.
My wife and I use prime, and it’s way riskier imo. We found out the hard way that you NEED a good PCM and doctor’s office that understands how tricare works or things will take forever/never get done. It took my wife months for referrals to go through for anything, until we finally found a doctor’s office that understood how our insurance worked and was a good doctor, now they are approved in a week and it’s pretty great.
I mainly use the VA (they’re pretty good around me) but if we ever move we’re going to switch to select during open season because I don’t want to spend 6 months to a year again trying to find another good doctors office for her.
As many have said, select is the better option, especially if you don't use the doc much. I am 62 and we have been on Select for at least 15 years since they kicked me off prime. But I have a FSA account at work and use that money to cover whatever copays I may have. I am having hand surgery in a couple days and my outlay is like $400 total I think. The flexibility it allows is great and I don't see much additional cost, for awhile there was no premium but now I pay like $27/mo out of my retirement pay, don't even notice. In another 2.5 years I will be on Tricare for Life..
That premium is nasty. He'll yeah. Also thanks for the words.
I see it is up to $879 a year for the premium. Not horrible but no way I would go back to Prime if given the opportunity.
Prime doesn’t necessarily = military PCM/care. Go to the Tricare site and see what you are actually eligible for at your new location. Prime may or may not even be an option for you to begin with. If you are eligible for prime, go to the Dr finder thing and see what all is available for PCM’s in your area. Last I looked there is a setting for military/mtf or non. If you have non military PCM’s in that area, you can use them, so have can have prime and avoid the military stuff! Remember you aren’t limited like an active service member, so an in network pcm is all the same military or not. Now that you know what your options are, the rest is just whatever cost and coverages suit you best between the 2.
Personally I’ve been on Prime since I retired. I haven’t stepped foot in or have had anything to do with military clinics and stuff since I retired. Closest MTF is 200mi away as it is. I have a regular civilian PCM in town and is pretty much like any other commercial plan except for the low cost and good coverage. I don’t have problems and don’t use it much, so Select would also work just fine for me, but keep Prime just for the better coverage (copays/cap). The small amount extra in enrollment fees pay off big should anything major happen is the way I see it. Also have USFHP available where I live which looks to be a good Prime alternative, but for my specific area, there are a lot more in network specialists and all with prime and would have to go out of town for a lot more stuff with USFHP.
Before I respond, I'm currently eating a turkey sandwich.
Very well crafted comment. This is more or less what I was trying to internally deconstruct but couldn't. Love this.
Select for me.
Up in WV, there are not AD bases. Only guard/reserve, so the only real option for the whole state is Select
Choice is paramount. Select. I was not gonna leave the choice for my autistic daughters care up to Prime. Hell no.
We have Prime and we live about 35 miles from the base so we got a civilian PCM. My wife has autoimmune disease and we’ve been lucky that our PCM have referred us to some great specialist
Select is way better in my opinion. Choose any doctor in network. You don't need referrals for specialty care. No crappy waiting time or dealing with the military socialist medical system.