How to Use VA Healthcare
A Veteran's Field Manual for Enrolling in and Using VA Healthcare
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About this book
Nobody hands you a manual for VA healthcare. The enrollment form sets your Priority Group, and your group decides whether you can enroll and what you pay. Skip the service and exposure questions, and VA may place you by income alone. This field manual walks you through the system from the enrollment form on: what to bring to your first appointment, when the wait-time and drive-time standards let you ask for Community Care, how to refer yourself to mental health care, what to do after a civilian emergency room, and how to file for the travel pay many veterans never claim.
Inside this book
- 1Enrolling in VA Healthcare: Priority Groups and Eligibility
- 2Your First VA Appointment: What to Expect and How to Prepare
- 3Community Care and the MISSION Act: When VA Sends You Outside
- 4Mental Health Services: Access, Referrals, and What's Available
- 5Prescriptions, Pharmacy, and Medication Management
- 6Dental and Vision: What's Covered and What's Not
- 7Urgent Care, Emergency Care, and the VA Emergency Room
- 8Travel Reimbursement and Beneficiary Travel
- 9CHAMPVA: Healthcare for Your Dependents
- 10Long-Term Care, Caregiver Support, and Aging in the VA System
Each chapter has step-by-step training, the common mistakes that cost veterans care or money, and a short field example. The book also comes with a free field guide, Enrolling in VA Health Care, a free download with no signup.
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J. Erickson
Author, educator, former veteran service officer.
J. Erickson is a service-disabled Air Force veteran. He served as a military firefighter and as a veteran service officer, where he spent years walking veterans through the same claims process he writes about now. He holds an MBA and writes plain-language guides for veterans who want to understand the system without a translator.
Read more about the author