New Veterans Health Benefits Handbooks…Personalized

VA introduces a health benefits handbook that's customized to your location, needs and eligibility. Our friends at the VA are producing personalized Veteran Health Benefits Handbooks for Veterans who are enrolled in VA health care.  I hear you. Personalized? Yep. 

Your booklet arrives in your mailbox with information not only specific to where you are (like where’s the nearest VA facility) but also what benefits you may be able to receive. It’ll tell you how to schedule appointments, what your co-pays might be (if applicable) and my favorite: how to communicate what your treatment needs are to your medical team.  That’s a big one.  I don’t know about you, but facing a doc, I sorta clam up. Great to have other ways to contact them.

When can you expect to see the mailman? Well they’re starting this month and it’s based on Priority Group.  Which is how you’d want it to be.  The vets who need it most are first.  Can’t argue with that.  They’ll work their way through Priority Group 1 to Priority Group 8, aiming to finish up by 2013.  It’ll take some time to get 8.5 million out, so in the meantime it’s business as usual.   

If you’d like a sneak peek at the Handbook, you can see a sample of it here. All 72 pages. So get comfortable. Or you can call the VA at 877-222-8387.

Why don’t they put this online? You telepathic???  That’s the next step. You’ll access it online at MyHealthevet.  We talked about that here last August. (link goes here.) Once that’s up you can access your personal handbook from anywhere at anytime.  Welcome to the future!

Now where did I put my track shoes? All this talk about health makes me think how good a coupla laps would feel.  Or maybe the gym.  Join me?

One last thing, remember you can always call the guys at the NVF.  888.777.4443. They got answers to questions you haven’t even thought of yet.

Dave Culmer, Semper Fi