Tom Philpott has covered the military for more than 30 years. His syndicated column, Military Update, reaches 2 million readers and focuses on breaking news affecting pay, benefits, and the lifestyle of service people. He is a contributing editor with Military Officer, and his freelance articles have appeared in numerous magazines including The New Yorker, Washingtonian, Readers' Digest, and Kiplinger's. Philpott served a tour in the U.S. Coast Guard as an information officer.
Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, returned from a recent visit to Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., alarmed that the Department of Veterans Affairs might have made a bad decision last June to replace its legacy electronic health record system, VistA, with the same commercial off-the-shelf system that the military is adopting, starting with Pacific Northwest bases.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis broke with tradition last month to impose a first-ever “universal retention policy” across the four service branches.
TRICARE beneficiaries will see increases in copayments for prescription drugs filled by mail order or at neighborhood retail outlets starting Feb. 1.
The VA published a revised rule Jan. 9 allowing payment of hundreds of thousands of pending claims for private-sector emergency care that veterans’ other health insurance covered in part but not in full.