Tricare Now Covering Transgender Treatment Options

The U.S. military’s Tricare health care system now covers transgender military family members and retirees, despite the official policy not yet going live, a top official said.

“I’m not going to wait for the final policy,” Navy Vice Adm. Raquel Bono, head of the Defense Health Agency, said in a wide-ranging interview with Military.com on Thursday atJoint Base Elmendorf-Richardson . . .

The policy, published for public comment in the Federal Register in February, will allow for hormone therapy and mental health counseling for “gender dysphoria,” the clinical term for those who identify as a different gender than the sex they were assigned at birth. Tricare is prohibited by law from covering sex-change surgery.

A ban on openly serving transgender troops was lifted by Defense Department officials in June. By Oct. 1, officials will issue a handbook for commanders and all those affected by the new policy, as well as medical guidance for providing transition care to transgender troops. As part of the new policy, military medical facilities will provide hormone treatment, counseling and sex-change surgery when deemed “medically necessary” . . .

In the meantime, Bono said, Tricare is working with its regional contractors to grant approval for transgender treatment that will be covered under the new policy. If the contractor will not approve it, the admiral said she will do so herself. (Read more from “Tricare Now Covering Transgender Treatment Options” HERE)

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