Deadline extended for overseas Tricare claims

Deadline extended for overseas Tricare claims
By Karen Jowers - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jan 28, 2009 13:35:13 EST

Tricare officials have extended the deadline to March 31 for overseas beneficiaries to file claims for reimbursement for bills from previous years.

The original deadline was Dec. 31, 2008, to file claims for services that were received before Dec. 31, 2007.

Since that original deadline was announced, Tricare officials said, they have received nearly 4,500 claims that have been approved for processing and payment. Tricare’s overseas claims processor, Wisconsin Physician Services, added staff to process the claims, but manual overseas claims processing requires extra time, officials said. Beneficiaries are urged to “be patient” and wait until February before contacting WPS about the status of their claims.

Officials have been educating Tricare providers and beneficiaries about the new emphasis on the deadline. The one-year filing deadline for claims has always been on the books and predates the Tricare program. But the problem was that overseas health care providers, according to the statutes of their countries, often had as much as three years to file a claim, officials said. They have been educating the providers that U.S. statutes apply to Tricare, not the host countries’ statutes.

After this new deadline, claims must be submitted within a year of service. Tricare officials said it is ultimately the beneficiary’s responsibility to ensure claims are submitted and processed in a timely manner, according to Tricare policy and federal regulations. In most places in the Pacific and Latin America, beneficiaries have to pay Tricare providers up front and then file the claim themselves. In Europe, that varies.


Rest of article at: http://armytimes.com/news/2009/01/military_tricaredeadline_012809w/%2e