Office of the Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs)/TRICARE Management Activity

Résumé

This notice is to advise interested parties of a Military Health System (MHS) demonstration project entitled TRICARE Provider Reimbursement Demonstration Project for the State of Alaska. The delivery of health care services in the State of Alaska represents a unique situation that cannot be addressed fully by strictly applying the same reimbursement rules that apply to TRICARE programs in the other 49 states without some modification. Typically, provider payments are the same as under Medicare, unless the Department has taken specific action to increase payment rates in response to a particular, severe access problem in a location. Under this demonstration, payment rates for physicians and other non-institutional individual professional providers in the State of Alaska will be set at a rate higher than the Medicare rate. The demonstration project will test the effect of this change on provider participation in TRICARE, beneficiary access to care, cost of health care services, military medical readiness, morale and welfare. In particular, the demonstration will test whether the increased costs of provider payments are offset in whole or part by savings in travel costs, lost duty tim