I can't figure out Tricare

C, my six-year-old daughter, hasn't been seen by a primary care provider in more than two years. None of my daughters have. We've moved around enough that switching providers has been a huge hassle... let me tell you why.

Since we moved into this house, on the opposite side of town, we wanted to set up a primary care provider (PCP) for them near our house. 

To be seen, I have to switch her PCP before the appointment. That's fine, except that the list of providers Tricare has seems to be severely outdated. Every time I switch providers, then call to make an appointment, it turns out that the doctor Tricare helped me choose either no longer works at the clinic, or isn't a PCP anymore (most recently, the doctor Tricare selected turned out to actually be a neonatal doctor). 

The Children's Hospital said they'd go ahead and make an appointment with one of the doctors that currently take patients at their clinic, but I would have to call Tricare right away and have C's PCP changed to that doctor so her insurance would cover the appointment. That would have worked. I was excited to finally have found the secret door. 

They forwarded me to a nurse to determine how to have C seen, based on my description of the situation. She was very nice and asked useful questions, of course. She said it sounded liked C definitely needed to be evaluated, based on my description  and would need to have a "new patient" appointment, at which the doctor would decide weather or not to referrer her to a specialist. She also said we should be able to get her scheduled for her first appointment in the next week and go from there. 

That would have been satisfying.

But then, when she forwarded me back to the appointment line, the woman who answered informed me that since C hasn't been seen there before, she would need a physical to establish care there. She can't be seen there at all until she has a physical, and the physical has to be at their clinic. Here's the best part: The next time the clinic is doing physicals is September.

Are physicals just incredibly complicated or difficult? Can anyone tell me why I can't get C a physical... just whenever I want? And am I just supposed to wait to have my child seen at all until September, now?

I want to take them off of Tricare and put them on civilian insurance, where they actually know what's going on with their physicians and patients. I've never seen anyone else have this much trouble with their insurance. Sure, I would have run into the same "she needs a physical, but you have to wait until September" problem at the Children's Hospital with any insurance company. At least I could have avoided the run around about which doctors are actually practicing pediatricians.  Unfortunately, the only way I can afford civilian insurance for my kids is to marry Papa... which is in the cards for the future, but "for insurance" is not what I want to think when asked why we decided to finally get married.

So, too frustrated to continue to deal with the problem, I had Papa call around to other clinics and hospitals in the area. He found one that has three practicing pediatricians that accept Tricare and would  be able to make an appointment as soon as next week (when we'll be out of town... but at least it's not September) and wrote down their information. The trouble, now, is that I'm not in control of the girls' insurance, so I have to wait to hear back from their dad. 

I called him at 10:37 this morning, and haven't heard back from him yet (3 hours later). But, I won't hold it against him since it is a work day. I just hope he calls back soon. We're going to be spending a week out of town with Papa's family, starting Saturday. There's no way we can get C's medical stuff taken care of before then, but I'd like to at least get my foot in the door as soon as I can.