“We anticipate the total being approximately 30,000 beneficiaries” who will be disenrolled in the process that is currently under way, TriWest officials said in a statement to Military Times.

Those who want to reinstate their coverage must do so by June 30.

This applies to beneficiaries who pay for their Tricare coverage using a credit card, debit card or bank electronic funds transfer and haven’t set up those payments with TriWest.

That sensitive payment information couldn’t be transferred automatically from the previous West Region contractor, Health Net Federal Services, to TriWest Healthcare Alliance, which took over the West Region on Jan. 1.

Beneficiaries are receiving letters from Defense Manpower Data Center informing them of their disenrollment, according to Tricare officials. The program set up a way for beneficiaries to request reinstatement of their coverage, but it won’t be automatic, and beneficiaries must request reinstatement before June 30.

“This disenrollment is retroactive to your paid-through date,” Tricare officials stated in an announcement. Those who haven’t made any payments for coverage this year are finding their disenrollment dates back to Jan. 1. They are responsible for paying the full cost of any health care services received by anyone in their family back to Jan. 1.

Beneficiaries in the Tricare West Region who have been disenrolled can’t request reinstatement through the TriWest portal. Instead, they must call TriWest at 888-874-9378 and say they’ve been disenrolled and want to reinstate their enrollment, according to Tricare officials.

They’ll be required to provide the payment information to TriWest and pay all overdue enrollment fees or premiums back to Jan. 1, officials said.

Many beneficiaries were having trouble getting those payments set up because of glitches in the TriWest online portal and difficulties getting through to their call center.

TriWest officials have been working to fix the problems and have added staff to the call center. After several extensions of the deadline, disenrollment of beneficiaries from Tricare began May 1 for those who didn’t submit payment information to TriWest by April 30, according to Tricare officials.

This issue doesn’t apply to those who have Tricare for Life, the U.S. Family Health Plan or a Tricare health plan overseas. Those who had set up allotments through the Defense Financing and Accounting Service previously for their payments were told they didn’t have to take action for their allotments to be automatically transferred to TriWest.

It’s not clear how many of those 30,000 beneficiaries expected to be disenrolled have actively chosen not to continue their coverage. In early January, TriWest officials told Military Times that 59% of those who needed to provide payment information had done so.

Initially, West Region beneficiaries were required to provide their information to TriWest before the Jan. 1 start date of the TriWest West Region contract. But because many beneficiaries were having difficulty setting up those payments, Tricare extended the deadline several times.

In late April, Defense Health Agency officials extended their referral approval waiver through June 30 for the West Region, which allows military families enrolled in Tricare Prime in that region an extra two months to get specialty care without having to get approval from the contractor, TriWest.

They didn’t extend the deadline for setting up recurring payments.

New DOD rules requiring child development center personnel to notify parents within 24 hours after they learn of an allegation don‘t go far enough, the report states.

As a result, parents or guardians may not be aware of the specifics of allegations involving their children, limiting the potential actions they can take to address the allegations and help their child, according to DOD’s independent watchdog.

During the period of the Inspector General’s evaluation, which began in May 2024, defense officials updated their policy to require notification to these parents or legal guardians within 24 hours after Child and Youth Program officials learn of the allegations.

However, the updated December 2024 policy doesn’t specifically address how the child development center staff should communicate information about the allegation and follow up with parents, or what specific information should be shared.

The services also need to maintain files of all notification documentation, according to the report.

Military child development centers provide child care for children from birth to age 5, but may also offer school-age care.

This report is the first to be published from an Inspector General evaluation of DOD child development centers. An upcoming report will focus on the services’ implementation of policies to verify that child abuse allegations were appropriately addressed at certain child development centers.

In response to this report, defense personnel officials agreed that the policy will be revised by Sept. 30 to require the military services to follow a uniform procedure to identify, notify and report child abuse and neglect allegations to parents in all DOD-sanctioned activities, including child development centers.

Army, Navy and Marine Corps officials replied that they will update their policies once defense officials issue theirs. The Navy’s target completion date for their new policy is April 30, 2026, and the Marine Corps’ is April 1, 2026. Air Force officials hadn’t yet provided a response to the report’s recommendations.

Army officials told inspectors that parents are immediately notified within 24 hours of any alleged or suspected incident, and that their regulations are being revised to include parental notifications with written incident reports for child abuse or neglect allegations.

Navy officials said parents must be notified in person or verbally by telephone within 24 hours of an incident, and written parental notification is required within 48 hours. A specific form isn’t required.

Marine Corps officials require notification within 24 hours, but officials told inspectors they don’t tell installations how to provide the communication. Air Force officials are in the process of revising their regulations to require notification of parents within 24 hours.

Defense officials are in the beginning stages of putting together a DOD-wide plan to meet the nutritional needs of service members and their families, Glenn Garrison, the Defense Department’s director of Morale, Welfare, and Recreation and Resale Policy, said during a recent military food service webinar.

For now, the plan involves a DOD regulation providing consistent standards and a single office for oversight of policy and advocacy for food on installations, Garrison said. But the goal is to also develop a comprehensive “strategic food master plan” for each installation, he said, and to identify gaps in the food services available at installations.

Troops may not have ready access to food at their dining facility because of a variety of factors, such as long lines, distance from their unit and barracks, or the food is simply not tasty. Hours of operation are a common factor, as they don’t always accommodate training and work schedules. At 2 a.m., the only option for food at an installation may be a vending machine or delivery from off-base.

The usage rate of the dining facilities ranges from 20% to 50%, depending on the service branch, Garrison said.

“That’s not the intent of dining facilities. We want to make sure we get food to our military service members, and it’s got to be healthy and tasty,” he said during the webinar, organized by the American Logistics Association.

Meanwhile, money for meal benefits is being deducted from service members’ paychecks even when they’re not using the dining facilities, but buying food elsewhere. In effect, they’re paying twice for food, Garrison said.

“We have to increase the meal card utilization rate,” said Chuck Milam, a former DOD official who has worked on improving food on military bases for nearly two decades. “We can’t continue down the path of having 100 meal card holders at a dining facility that costs a couple million or three million dollars to operate.”

Are dining facilities wasting money because troops don't eat there?

It’s also a matter of cost and efficiency. A previous study showed that food costs in dining facilities are higher than most colleges and universities — about $25 to $40 per plate in military dining facilities, compared to about $7 per plate in colleges, Milam said.

Although DOD has tried to promote healthier eating through color-coded nutrition labeling in dining facilities, inconsistent implementation and oversight have hampered those efforts to encourage nutritious choices, Garrison said.

A critical pillar of the DOD instruction that’s in the works is ensuring reliable and resilient food security across all installations, Garrison said. This will guarantee that installations maintain consistent access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food “aligned with mission requirements.”

Installations’ food systems must be strong enough to withstand vulnerabilities such as supply chain disruptions and local resource limitations, he added. Officials should plan for long-term availability even in the event of a crisis.

One big challenge in bringing food improvements is that food policy comes from multiple offices within DOD and the services, Garrison said.

Having that central point of control over food on installations is “critically important,” Milam added. Today, there’s a “spaghetti chart of who’s in charge of food,” he said.

Acquisition and sustainment officials own the dining facilities. DOD personnel officials oversee health affairs, the commissaries and non-appropriated fund activities like clubs and restaurants, as well as the brand-name eateries like McDonald’s and Panera that operate on base through agreements with the military exchanges.

All told, food sold through non-appropriated fund entities makes up about 80% of the food on any given military installation, Garrison said.

The services have been working on a variety of initiatives to improve the food for service members and families, but not all initiatives work for all the services or every installation, Garrison said.

In addition to DOD regulations, to include an assessment of food on installations, Milam said, legislation is needed to ensure the improvements are codified and enduring, lasting beyond administrations that come and go.

“Our service men and women deserve better, healthier food,” Milam said.

“Young men and women in college shouldn’t have better food than our service men and women that we deploy to tough locations, and carry 80- to 90 pounds on their back in a wartime environment. We should have the very best food for them, not only in dining facilities, but outside of dining facilities as well.”

It’s the second time Defense Health Agency officials have extended their referral approval waiver, which was first announced in late January. The waiver is a move to help ease the problems families have been experiencing since TriWest took over the contract for the West Region at the start of the year.

One issue was that Tricare Prime families haven’t been able to get referrals approved by TriWest, which is traditionally required before they can get specialty care.

“After assessing the current state of referrals, DHA has decided to extend the referral approval waiver for many beneficiaries,” Richard Hart, division chief of health plan design for Tricare, said in DHA’s announcement of the extension.

‘Families will still struggle’

Advocates question how much the extension of the referral approval waiver will help military families and medical providers. Some families aren’t able to get specialty care even with a referral from their Tricare Prime primary care manager because of the difficulty finding a specialist who will accept Tricare.

“I don’t think [the extension] is going to make a significant difference, because it doesn’t address the root problem,” said Dr. Kristi Cabiao, CEO and president of Mission Alpha Advocacy, an organization that works to improve the quality of life for military families within the Exceptional Family Member Program. “Families are still going to struggle finding providers who will take Tricare.”

“Providers haven’t received payment. They don’t trust the system. They’re either going to minimize the number of Tricare patients they take, or drop Tricare,” she said. “Families are facing significant barriers.”

Many providers still don’t have contracts to work with TriWest, Cabiao said. And the lack of payment has caused such financial difficulties that some medical providers have had no choice but to permanently shut down.

“What is the projected timeline for resolution? Have we identified the root of the problem?” Cabiao asked.

During a conference March 31, a Defense Health Agency official said he expected the problems would be resolved in a couple of months.

In the meantime, Cabiao suggested, one solution would be to have an additional open enrollment period now.

“It’s the Tricare Prime people who are really struggling. If [DHA] opened up enrollment so they could switch to Tricare Select, at least they’d get away from this mess. They’d have co-pays, but would have access to specialists,” she said.

Tricare snafus cause medical shortfalls for military families

Normal referral processing returns to some MTFs

Certain military hospitals and clinics have returned to normal referral processing through TriWest, as the company works to improve its referral processing system, DHA officials said.

Beneficiaries whose primary care managers are located at these facilities will have their referrals processed by TriWest:

California: Naval Medical Center San Diego, Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton, Naval Hospital Twentynine Palms, Naval Health Clinic Lemoore and Army Health Clinic Presidio of Monterey

Colorado: Air Force Academy clinics, Peterson Air Force Base clinic, Buckley AFB clinic, Fort Carson’s Evans Army Community Hospital and Schriever Space Force Base clinic

Nebraska: Offutt AFB clinic

Nevada: Nellis AFB’s Mike O’Callaghan Military Medical Center

Texas: Brooke Army Medical Center

Washington: Madigan Army Medical Center, Naval Hospital Bremerton and Naval Health Clinic Oak Harbor

“We’re going to use everything that is happening to make [the Defense Commissary Agency] a better organization. This is a strategic opportunity for DeCA to transform itself,” said John Hall, director of the Defense Commissary Agency, at an American Logistics Association meeting in Richmond, Virginia, on April 22.

“We’re going to become more like a commercial grocery chain than ever before. We’ll be a commercial grocery chain that happens to work for the Department of Defense. … By that I mean we’ll offer all the products and services, all those good things you see in a good commercial grocery chain, and while doing that, we’re going to continue to deliver 25% savings,” Hall said.

Privatization of commissaries and exchanges has come to the forefront of discussions, in light of an April 7 memo from Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg on restructuring the DOD civilian workforce, which stated, “All functions that are not inherently governmental (e.g. retail sales and recreation) should be prioritized for privatization.”

But officials are contending with more than just the Feinberg memo, said Steve Rossetti, president of ALA. In addition to discussions in Congress about privatizing programs and services on military installations, the Trump administration has taken steps to reduce the federal workforce and implemented a hiring freeze. There’s also the tariff situation, and its looming effect on military stores, which sell many of the same products carried by civilian stores.

About 200 of DeCA’s 12,500 employees took the federal workforce early buyout offer, Hall said. While some of those were key people whom officials will need to figure out how to replace, he said, there hasn’t been much of an effect otherwise. The agency hasn’t been significantly impacted by the hiring freeze so far, Hall said, but officials are asking DOD for some exemptions to keep workers in the stores and in the central distribution centers.

“The longer it goes, the more likely it will start to have an effect,” he said.

Still, DOD and commissary officials are taking steps to improve commissaries for troops and families, and officials said they are seeing results. Officials are expected to soon award a contract for nationwide doorstep delivery and are continuing efforts to improve the supply chain to decrease costs for suppliers, customers and the commissary system.

Nationwide doorstep delivery getting closer for commissary customers

The agency has also taken steps to lower egg prices and stock more products on shelves, among other efforts, to improve customer experience.

As egg prices soared earlier this year, officials were able to use variable pricing to lower egg prices at commissaries. A relatively new pricing tool for the agency, variable pricing involves marking up the price of some products to pay for lowering the cost of others. Until 2017, all commissary products were priced at the cost from the supplier/manufacturer.

“We were spending up to $500,000 a week to lower the prices of eggs for our service members and their families. We were at about 24.2% savings overall in eggs compared to the market,” Hall said.

Overall, commissaries have made progress in improving the availability of products, called the “in-stock rate” in the retail industry. The in-stock rate for commissaries overall is 97%, up from 95% a year ago.

“That means that when a patron walks into the store, they’re going to get about 97% of the products that they’re looking for,” Hall said.

Officials are working to address stores with lower rates, and aim to increase the overall rate to 98%. He added that the in-stock rates for commercial grocery chains average about 93.5%.

Hall highlighted commissaries in Guam, which have had an in-stock rate in the mid-to-upper 80% range, he said. For the last two months, the in-stock rate has been at 95%, approaching 96%. Changes made at Guam commissaries — carrying more of what customers locally want to buy and simultaneously driving up the in-stock rates — resulted in a 20% increase in sales, he said, and officials want to apply those lessons across the system’s 235 stores.

Commissary sales have also increased over the last four years, reversing a decline over the previous 10 years, Hall said.

“That’s far beyond what commercial grocery chains have done in the last three and a half years or so,” he said.

In fiscal 2024, commissary sales were $4.7 billion, up more than 17% since 2020. In 2012, dollar sales were $6 billion.

Sales overall in commissaries are up by about 2.5% this fiscal year compared to the same period last year, he said.

About 77% of active duty members and families who live within 20 miles of a commissary shop at least once a month there, Hall said. Of the households with retirees and disabled veterans living within that radius, about 35% use the commissary.

“We need this. Our customers want and need this contract,” Hall said during a meeting of the American Logistics Association in Richmond, Virginia, on Tuesday. “I’m really excited about this.”

Hall did not provide a specific timeline for the broader rollout of the service, which is currently limited to select pilot locations.

“There are some hurdles left,” he said. “We’re going to work really hard to get over it.”

According to the contract solicitation documents, delivery service would be available to eligible customers living within a 20-mile radius of commissaries in the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The solicitation requires the service to start initially at 70 locations, but gives the Defense Commissary Agency the ability to add any of the remaining 108 commissaries at any time.

Commissary officials aren’t considering doorstep delivery for overseas commissaries, due to overseas regulatory constraints.

There are about 3.4 million eligible households living within a 20-mile radius of those 178 commissaries, which sell discounted groceries as a benefit to active duty, Guard and Reserve members, military retirees, Medal of Honor recipients and their authorized family members. Veterans with any Department of Veterans Affairs-documented, service-connected disability rating also have commissary privileges.

Officials launched a pilot program in 2022 for deliveries at eight commissaries, including Scott Air Force Base, Illinois; Fort Bragg South, North Carolina; MacDill Air Force Base, Florida; Fort Belvoir and Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia; Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington; and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and Naval Base San Diego in California.

Delivery costs has been an issue in the service rollout. Officials are trying to keep delivery costs for customers as low as possible, Hall said.

“We want it comparable to what they would pay at a local grocery chain [for delivery],” he said.

When the pilot first launched in 2022, most delivery fees hovered around $4 per order. Customers pay the fee in addition to the cost of groceries, the 5% commissary surcharge, and, if desired, a tip for the driver. But those low delivery fees made it financially difficult for the two companies handling the deliveries to cover operating costs like gas prices and drivers’ salaries.

One of the companies, ChowCall, took over all the deliveries at the eight commissaries in March 2023, and was allowed to set prices to cover its costs. The cost depends on the miles driven, ranging from about $16 to about $30. ChowCall has delivered more than 28,000 commissary orders from the eight pilot locations, according to Todd Waldemar, founder and CEO of ChowCall.

Information is not yet available about whether the delivery fee will be subsidized in some way by the commissary system under the new contract.

Customers using the delivery service at the eight pilot stores buy nearly three times as much per order as customers shopping in person at commissaries, according to Hall. The average shopping basket is about $185 for customers using the delivery service, compared to the average basket of about $65 per trip for those shopping inside the stores. For those using the curbside pickup service available at all commissaries, the average order is about $120, according to Hall.

“Think about how much more benefit we can deliver to our customers, how much more we can combat food insecurity when we get this delivery contract in place,” Hall said.

Kinderspot allows parents to sublet their child care spaces at Air Force child development centers when they’re away for vacation or other reasons, connecting them to other eligible Department of Defense families who need the child care.

The app, which was the brainchild of Air Force Maj. Jacque Vasta, was launched Air Force-wide in July, following testing at a number of bases. To date, 12,361 military families are using the platform, and 12,558 child care spot rentals have been facilitated, according to Air Force officials. Nearly 22,500 weeks of child care availability have been offered.

Generally, parents are required to pay for the weeks their children are away from military child care, such as when the family is on leave or when the service member is away on temporary duty. The app allows them to save those funds. When parents successfully sublet a child’s vacant spot, they receive a credit to their account.

For example, a family planning to take a vacation this summer might be able to offer their spot on the app, and it could be picked up by another military family who needs short-term child care as they make a permanent change of station move to or from the installation.

“Kinderspot has been a major win when it comes to supporting our members and their families with child care in the Air Force,” said Lt. Col. Tyler Hough, branch chief of the Air Force Business and Enterprise Systems Product Innovation, or BESPIN, in the announcement.

The rental fees are paid directly to the center at the renter’s rate. That rate is based on the family income of the renters, not the total family income of the family who has the permanent child care space.

The child subletting the spot must be in the same age group as the child with the permanent spot. Families without a child currently enrolled at a child development center must complete paperwork to become a verified renter at their center before booking available weeks through the app.

Military families testing new app for ‘subletting’ child care slots

The Kinderspot app is available for download on Apple and Android devices. The Air Force child care centers validate all users of the app to make sure they are eligible to either offer a spot or rent a spot.

None of the other service branches are currently considering adopting the app, officials told Military Times.

The Navy allows families with children enrolled full-time in child care to take 10 vacation days each year per child without having to pay for those days, said Destiny Sibert, a spokeswoman for Commander, Navy Installations Command. Their child care center may use that open space to accommodate hourly care during the child’s absence. In addition, the Navy child and youth program will hold a space for a military member who is temporarily detailed to another location at no cost if child care isn’t needed during that time, she said.

The Defense Department and service branches have been taking various steps and implementing programs to alleviate the shortage of child care for military parents.

Forty-four of the 56 families in the complaint are military families. The remaining plaintiffs, civilian families, have been permitted to live in the community when space was available. Many children are among the 192 current and former residents named in the lawsuit, which was filed in state court in Monroe County, Florida, on March 27.

Families reported issues such as collapsing ceilings because of water damage, mold, insect infestation, structural defects, HVAC and plumbing issues, electrical problems and the presence of lead paint and asbestos, according to the lawsuit. Balfour Beatty leases and manages more than 43,000 homes across 55 Army, Navy and Air Force installations, including 700 housing units at NAS Key West.

“Balfour concealed the horrific conditions from unsuspecting service men and women and their families,” the 175-page complaint alleges. “When these conditions were discovered and reported, Balfour systematically failed to properly repair and remediate significant problems in the homes,” the plaintiffs claim, and “Balfour misled the families into believing that repairs were made, knowing that families living in the homes would likely suffer serious health problems as a result of the conditions.”

The lawsuit alleges the families suffered from severe physical, emotional and financial harm because of the condition of the houses and Balfour’s actions.

“We are aware of the complaint and intend to defend ourselves vigorously,” Balfour Beatty Communities officials said in an email statement to Military Times.

The families allege they’ve experienced exposure-related medical problems as a result of the housing conditions, such as asthma and other respiratory issues, sinusitis, migraines, memory loss, brain fog, blurred vision, compromised immune systems and rashes. Some of the families stated that when they would leave the house for a time, their symptoms would disappear, but would start again when they returned to the house.

The families accuse Balfour Beatty of gross negligence, fraud, breach of contract, negligent infliction of emotional distress and breach of warranty of habitability. They ask for an unspecified amount of compensatory damages and punitive damages.

Plaintiff Virginia Guess said her children developed persistent respiratory issues and other health problems within months of moving into their home at NAS Key West in June 2022. They developed the “Sigsbee cough,” a label used by neighbors and teachers to describe a cough in children who lived in Key West’s military housing. The Sigsbee Park housing includes more than 500 townhouse units, many of which were built between 1962 and 1965, according to the complaint.

Guess, a construction manager who started working for Balfour Beatty in August 2023 as a service center coordinator, “quickly recognized alarming patterns of negligence in housing maintenance,” according to the lawsuit. It hit home when the Guess’s ceiling started to crack in February 2024. But Balfour Beatty delayed needed repairs, the complaint alleges, and by June of that year, there was water intrusion and mold growth. An independent moisture reading inspection found severe mold contamination.

“Yet Balfour management attempted to shift blame, attributing the mold to ‘dog hair’ and excessive ‘pasta boiling,’” the lawsuit states.

Other family members who worked for Balfour Beatty alleged they witnessed company employees engaging in “fraudulent and deceptive practices.” Plaintiff Lyric Seaton alleges employees were “instructed to lie to Navy housing inspectors, block visible damage, and select only ‘perfect’ files for audits.”

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., asked Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy James Honea about some of the allegations against Balfour Beatty during a congressional hearing on service members’ quality-of-life challenges on April 8.

“This lawsuit even claims that Balfour Beatty officials blocked Navy personnel from inspecting houses in some cases,” Wasserman Shultz said.

Honea said he didn’t have information about specific allegations.

“I do know that both the installation commander and their teams did go through all the housing down there at Key West,” Honea said, noting that Naval Installations Command officials inspected some of the homes. “We did a full inventory of all those homes and determined a certain portion of them to be uninhabitable. Balfour Beatty paid for those members to be moved and placed in other homes or temporary housing as necessary.”

Gaps in military housing improvements lead to frustration, confusion

Mold infestation was a common complaint among the families. Sections of the McCarthy family’s garage ceiling collapsed on two occasions in 2023 and 2024, revealing mold, water damage, decaying trusses and extensive termite tunnels. When the military family moved to temporary housing in May 2024, they woke up in the middle of their first night covered in bugs, according to the complaint. So they returned to their original house, where five months later, water began pouring from their kitchen’s light fixtures, saturating the ceiling, dripping down walls and seeping through cabinets.

When Balfour maintenance looked at the kitchen’s condition, they claimed everything looked normal, the suit alleges.

“The Balfour report notes that, ‘The mold looks good,’” the lawsuit states.

Many of the families in the lawsuit said they had no choice but to stay in dangerous conditions. The Moody family moved out in October 2024 after two years, paying for more than $5,000 in moving expenses. The active duty family said they experienced water leaks in the roof, ceiling, walls and electrical outlets and persistent mold infestation. They say their infant son suffered persistent health problems. His mother fears exposure to mold and other hazards during his early development might lead to lung problems or other complications later in life, according to the complaint.

“The guilt that she had no choice but to bring her newborn home to a dangerous and hazardous house is overwhelming,” the lawsuit states.

Balfour Beatty has previously come under scrutiny for subpar living conditions in military housing. The company pleaded guilty in 2021 to committing fraud against the U.S. and was ordered to pay $65 million in fines and restitution for misconduct relating to its military housing practices in federal contracts. The company also agreed to pay $35 million to resolve a False Claims Act civil suit brought by the government.

Civilian employees, including appropriated fund employees and nonappropriated fund employees, can shop at the 16 stateside stores participating in the program as long as they have DOD identification.

About 11% of the more than 61,000 DOD civilians eligible to shop at these stores have used the benefit in the four months of the pilot program, which was originally scheduled to end April 4. Sales across the 16 pilot stores have increased by 5.4% in those four months, and officials expect that trend to continue, said Keith Desbois, a spokesman for the Defense Commissary Agency.

Allowing DOD civilians to shop in the commissaries is expected to provide additional customer savings through increased sales volume, lower prices and more promotions from suppliers, commissary officials said.

The stores with the highest usage of the pilot program are Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Georgia, where nearly half of the 1,327 eligible civilians have used the pilot program; Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, where 36% of the 928 eligible civilians have used it; and Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, where one-third of the 995 eligible civilians have taken part.

The 16 stores are located in seven states:

• Alaska: Eielson Air Force Base
• California: Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and Fort Irwin
• Georgia: Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany and Robins Air Force Base
• Maryland: Naval Air Station Patuxent River
• Oklahoma: Altus Air Force Base
• Texas: Laughlin Air Force Base
• Virginia: Naval Support Facility Dahlgren; Joint Base Langley-Eustis (Fort Eustis and Langley Air Force Base commissaries); Fort Gregg-Adams; Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story (Little Creek commissary); Naval Station Norfolk; Naval Air Station Oceana; and Norfolk Naval Shipyard (Portsmouth)

The pilot program excludes family members of DOD civilian employees and former and retired DOD civilians. It also doesn’t include the purchase of tobacco or alcohol products and doesn’t provide online shopping privileges.

For 157 years, military commissaries have offered discounted groceries on installations. Current authorized customers include active, reserve or retired service members; veterans with service-connected disabilities; Purple Heart and Medal of Honor recipients; and authorized family members, among other eligible patrons.

“All functions that are not inherently governmental (e.g. retail sales and recreation) should be prioritized for privatization,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg said in an April 7 memo on restructuring its civilian workforce.

“I think it’s clear that the administration and DOD are interested in privatizing commissaries and other retail operations,” said Eileen Huck, acting director of government relations for the National Military Family Association. “We’ve historically been really cautious about proposals like that because there’s just no way, we think, a private entity could operate the commissaries profitably and still deliver the benefit to military families.”

And while retail stores are cited as examples of potential privatization, they represent a small portion of what could be a broader universe of functions considered “not inherently governmental” under the April 7 memo.

“I wouldn’t want to speculate as to how the department defines or interprets functions that are not inherently governmental,” Huck said. “I don’t know exactly what they mean by that, and it’s hard for me to interpret what other functions might be included.”

Privatization isn’t new on military bases. The services have privatized most of their family housing, while some unaccompanied barracks are managed by private companies. Bases offer a variety of morale, welfare, and recreation programs — such as fitness centers, golf courses and lodging — most of which are run by the military, but some are privatized. The Army, for example, has privatized its on-base hotels at 40 installations across the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

But some advocates argue a number of services, like child care and spouse employment programs, should be off-limits to privatization, saying they are too tied to service members’ readiness to be handed over to private companies.

DOD issues guidance to advance civilian workforce overhaul

Commissaries and exchanges

Military stores are at the forefront of privatization examples. Various groups within and outside the Defense Department have proposed commissary privatization over the past several decades, eyeing the billion-plus dollars of taxpayer money used to operate the stores, but those proposals have been rejected as advocates defended the benefit.

“Commissaries are vital for food security, and it’s critical that they be imbedded in the DOD organic operations,” said Steve Rossetti, president of the American Logistics Association, an organization representing manufacturers and distributors who provide products to military resale operations. He cited a DOD report to Congress in September that underscored the importance of the commissary program in reacting to a crisis that could interrupt food to troops and families such as a port strike, pandemic, or chemical, biological or nuclear contamination caused by war.

Defense officials kept commissaries open during the COVID-19 pandemic, deeming them “mission essential.”

“Outsourcing is already taking place where it makes sense,” Rossetti said. “All the manufacturing and much of the distribution from source to shelf is private sector-operated. It’s only where it makes sense and yields benefits to the troops and the taxpayer where work is performed by the government.”

By law, commissaries must provide an average overall savings of 23.7%, compared to civilian grocery stores. To provide the savings, the stores rely on the annual appropriation of more than $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars for the costs of operations. In 2022, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin directed DOD to fully fund commissaries in order to cut costs at the register in an effort to help families with the rising costs of food.

On the other hand, military exchanges don’t use taxpayer dollars for their operations. They provide department-store goods at varying discounts. They also operate gas stations, convenience stores and liquor stores. Eateries ranging from Burger King to Panera Bread also have agreements with the exchanges to operate on many military bases. Military exchanges are also tasked with operating the school meal programs for school-age children at DOD schools on overseas military bases.

Exchange sales’ profits are used partly for store improvements and part of the profits are returned to installations to help fund morale, welfare and recreation programs.

Over the years, various proposals to consolidate the military exchanges have failed, as questions persisted about whether the cost to merge the stores would outweigh the benefit of a merger.

The Military Officers Association of America supports efforts to implement efficiencies in DOD, but recommends a thorough assessment of lessons learned from past privatization initiatives, said Jennifer Goodale, director of military spouse and family programs for the advocacy organization.

“It also remains essential that efficiency not come at the expense of military members and families,” Goodale said. “This is important for preserving the substantial progress made by Congress and DOD in improving quality of life for the all-volunteer force and their families.”

Dining halls

Privatizing military dining facilities could be an option to improve them, with some caveats, military officials said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday. Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., citing the privatization reference in the April 7 DOD memo, asked whether dining facilities could operate more effectively, efficiently and predictably if they were handed over to the private sector.

Navy Vice Adm. Scott Gray, commander of Navy Installations Command, said he believes galleys could benefit from privatization. An exception, however, would be ships, where the feeding of sailors can’t be privatized while underway in a combat zone, he said.

Army Lt. Gen. Christopher Mohan, deputy commanding general for Army Materiel Command, said he believes the privatization of dining facilities with proper oversight could be beneficial, with the exception of overseas deployed operations.

Horace Larry, director of Air Force Services, said readiness and combat elements need to be considered in any effort to privatize Air Force dining facilities. “My vote isn’t in yet,” he said.

Although the Marine Corps hasn’t taken steps to fully privatize its dining facilities, a private contractor operates its mess halls in the continental U.S., according to Maj. Gen. Jason Woodworth, commander of Marine Corps Installations Command. He said he’d take the question to Marine Corps leadership for more input.

“Obviously there would be some significant benefits, but I would bet the costs would go up,” Woodworth told lawmakers.

“As you can imagine, it’s quite uncomfortable,” said Seals, mother of three young children ages 5, 3 and 14 months, on March 12. While the movers who packed and loaded their household goods at Fort Cavazos, Texas, on Feb. 19-20 were great, she said, “now the issue is waiting for our HHG to show up — we have no idea when that is going to be.”

The required delivery date was Feb. 28, and their mover, HomeSafe Alliance, told them they hadn’t found a driver to deliver their belongings, she said. Ten days later, on March 22, their household goods were finally delivered.

And this is early in the season. The busiest season for military moves is generally mid-May to mid-September.

With the military moving season bearing down on service members and their families, the prognosis for pickup and delivery of household goods is unclear. Much of it depends on the volume of military shipments and the capacity of movers to handle the load.

“The volume of shipments in the coming peak season ultimately depends on how many people the services are moving,” said Scott Ross, spokesman for U.S. Transportation Command, the Defense Department command in charge of the physical movement of service members’ belongings during a permanent change of station.

Following recent reports of issues with military moves, TRANSCOM officials no longer plan to fully transition all domestic shipments into the new Global Household Goods Contract, or GHC, by the April/May timeframe, as previously planned. The GHC contractor, HomeSafe Alliance, is handling the Seals family’s move.

TRANSCOM officials said they are adjusting their plan, but declined to specify how much they are reducing the number of moves that will be handled by HomeSafe.

The command will operate both programs — the legacy system and the GHC during the 2025 peak season, “and hold industry accountable in both,” Ross said. “This dual approach allows TRANSCOM to leverage capacity from both programs while also allowing HomeSafe the opportunity to improve their services.”

Members of the moving industry reported that more than 1,000 shipments were picked up by movers in the legacy system after the shipments were turned down by HomeSafe when it was unable to schedule movers, according to information provided March 13 by Movers for America, a coalition of moving professionals and independent owner-operators who move military families. The coalition has asked members of Congress for a pause in the implementation of the GHC.

The new GHC system, which began rolling out in April 2024, aims to fix long-standing problems with missed pickup and delivery dates, broken and lost items and issues with claims. It consolidates management under a single contractor, HomeSafe Alliance, which is responsible for overseeing all aspects of military families’ moves. TRANSCOM retains oversight of the program and holds HomeSafe accountable.

Under the legacy system, TRANSCOM works directly with more than 900 individual moving companies, making it difficult for the government to track and resolve issues. Those problems culminated in the summer of 2018, when moving companies didn’t have the capacity to handle the number of moves.

HomeSafe officials have acknowledged there have been some delays in moving families, related to the capacity of their network of moving companies. Some companies have been reluctant to do business with HomeSafe because its rates are lower than those under the legacy system.

Some families are feeling the effects of the delays both at the beginning of their move and at the end, when they are awaiting delivery.

An Air Force lieutenant colonel and his wife at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, are among the military families who have felt the direct impact. More than a month after his move was awarded to HomeSafe, the company was still telling him “we are diligently working to find you a service provider,” said the officer, who asked to remain anonymous. He was in communication with his local transportation office at Ellsworth the entire time, which he describes as “awesome.”

At the beginning of March, about two weeks from his requested move date, his transportation office on base transferred the move back to the legacy system.

The Air Force and Army have issued notices to their transportation offices that any service members’ shipments that have no mover assigned with less than a 21-day lead time before the move must be pulled back into the legacy system.

The legacy system found a mover for the officer’s family. A moving company drove from Great Falls, Montana, to their home in Rapid City. “They’re loading today, so big win there — no thanks to HomeSafe or GHC,” the officer said on March 18.

Moving industry forecast

HomeSafe Alliance has made “significant progress” in strengthening its network of movers, and is pursuing “every available option for growing our capacity” for the next months of military moves, officials told Military Times.

It’s working with TRANSCOM to resolve issues and closely coordinating on a careful phase-in of the new program “to ensure a smooth peak moving season,” they said.

As for the broader universe of moving companies, some of which are doing business with both HomeSafe and the legacy system, there is uncertainty.

In general, moving companies are struggling a bit, because business across the board has been slow during the winter, said Dan Bradley, vice president of government and military relations for the International Association of Movers. But if the number of people moving in the DOD system is similar to what it’s been over the past two years, there shouldn’t be a capacity concern, certainly not in the legacy system, he said.

But there is uncertainty. TRANSCOM had previously touted its plan to move 100% of all domestic shipments under the GHC by the start of this year’s moving season, he said. Movers have been unsure how many people to hire for the summer or whether to buy more trucks, because they don’t know how business will be split between the legacy system and GHC, he said. There’s also uncertainty about whether TRANSCOM will reduce competitive rate ranges that affect what movers are paid under the legacy system. Those new rate ranges go into effect May 15.

“Movers are asking, ‘How far do I go right now to prepare for the summer, when I don’t have real good visibility of the landscape for the summer?’ ” Bradley said.

All this boils down to whether there will be enough movers to move military families this spring ans summer.

What military families can do

As soon as service members get orders to make a PCS move, they should visit Military OneSource, where they’ll find a variety of tips and instructions, and a link to start setting up their move. At that point, they will be put into either the HomeSafe Alliance system or the legacy system. They’ll either deal directly with HomeSafe, or with a moving company assigned by the legacy system.

A number of military families who described their experience said they’ve had trouble communicating with HomeSafe about the status of their shipment.

One soldier said he went through the system as soon as he received his orders in October 2024. HomeSafe completed his pre-move survey Feb. 7, but as of late March had yet to assign a moving company to pack and load his belongings ahead of his May 10 report date to Fort Irwin, California.

Communication with HomeSafe has been “horrible,” he said. “This will be my fifth PCS move, and I’ve never had to wait this long to find out who was moving my stuff.”

HomeSafe officials said they have addressed issues with communication to ensure service members get the timely updates they need. They’ve standardized communication between departments, improved their training program, and added more “proactive communication to customers throughout their moves.”

When service members are having any type of problem — regardless of who is moving them — they should contact their local transportation offices, Ross said.

HomeSafe advises service members to set up their HomeSafe Connect accounts as soon as possible after receiving an email with instructions for using the Okta user authentication system and HomeSafe Connect.

They also advise to:

* Update the destination address in HomeSafe Connect as soon as possible; when the shipment is ready for delivery, it will notify the service member.

* Have someone available at the residence — the service member or someone standing in — from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on all scheduled moving dates.

* Separate items such as medications, important documents, uniforms and other essential items, as well as jewelry and other valuables, to carry yourself. Place them in a separate, marked part of the house, or in a locked car, so they aren’t packed with the household goods shipment.

Those who experience delays should contact HomeSafe or their moving company to file an inconvenience claim. “When a claim is approved, we compensate the service member and each of their family members on the PCS order for every day that their move is delayed,” HomeSafe officials said.

While the services’ transportation offices are being watchful of these HomeSafe shipments, and pulling them back if HomeSafe can’t find a moving company within 21 days of a move, service members should be mindful and keep in touch with their transportation office if they haven’t been contacted by a company.

Cover your six

Regardless of who is moving you, take photos and videos of your household goods beforehand so that if something is lost or damaged, you have proof of their prior condition.

Before disposing of broken up or damaged belongings, check with your moving company or transportation office to see what evidence is needed for the claim to be substantiated.

One military wife who just began the moving process in March expressed the hopes of many for the busy moving season to come: “I am trying to stay positive with our PCS move this year as changes occur within the military system,” she wrote.

“As of now we are skeptical, but hopeful, things will turn out for the better with our move come this summer.”

The child development center at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, has closed. No other centers have closed at Air Force, Army, Navy or Marine Corps bases, officials said, in response to Military Times’ questions.

Child development centers “traditionally face high turnover, and several recent departures in conjunction with the hiring freeze reduced the number of supervisors and trainers” at Hill AFB, Air Force officials stated. Air Force child development centers are staffed with employees paid by appropriated funds, which are taxpayer dollars, as well as non-appropriated funds.

Although military child and youth programs were exempted from the hiring freeze in mid-March, there was uncertainty when the freeze was first implemented. As a result, some child care centers have struggled to recover from those initial pauses in hiring. The country has long faced a shortage of child care workers.

The Air Force now has an exemption for its child care centers from the Defense Department hiring freeze, but the hiring, on-boarding and training process takes time, officials said.

The Air Force’s appropriated-fund employees weren’t exempt from the Deferred Resignation Program, which allowed some Defense Department civilians to resign while receiving full pay and benefits through September.

The impact on child care centers, if any, varies from installation to installation, Air Force officials said. It also depends on how quickly the centers can hire new personnel.

At Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado, officials will close one of their infant rooms on Friday because of the staffing issues, said a Space Base Delta 1 spokesperson. The closure is necessary to maintain an appropriate ratio of caregivers for children, to ensure the children’s safety and well being, the spokesperson said.

“We are working through hiring freeze exemptions as quickly as possible,” he said, adding that the base would work with affected families to return to the main CDC as quickly as possible.

Peterson officials asked eight families to voluntarily transfer their infants to an off-base, licensed, accredited child care center at no additional cost, through their Community Contracted Child Care program. Peterson launched the program in 2023 to address the high demand for child care at the base, and through March of this year, had reduced the waitlist by 150 children.

This is what the pandemic taught us about military child care

That’s one example of initiatives the services have implemented over the past several years to increase the availability of child care for military families.

Their efforts to recruit and retain more child care workers have had a positive impact on staffing levels, Air Force officials said.

“This has enabled us to better navigate staffing challenges this year and maintain consistent care for the children of our airmen and guardians,” officials said.

Among other things, those initiatives include bonuses for employees based on their longevity and other factors, and a 100% child-care fee discount for the first enrolled child of direct-care staff. They also receive a 25% discount for additional enrolled children. Since these initiatives were implemented, the Air Force increased the staff of those providing direct care to children by more than 20%, officials said.

Navy child care hasn’t been significantly affected by the personnel moves, service officials said. Most employees of Navy child and youth programs are paid by non-appropriated funds and were exempted from participating in the Deferred Resignation Program.

There was “a bit of a hiccup” at the beginning of the hiring freeze, however, when it wasn’t clear whether it applied to non-appropriated fund workers, said Destiny Sibert, spokesperson for Commander, Navy Installations Command headquarters. Some programs had to adjust their hours, but operations should be back soon to full staffs, she said.

Navy officials have also been working to increase the amount of child care over the last several years, reducing the wait list for child development centers and school age care by half since fiscal 2023, from 5,000 to 2,500. By implementing salary increases, recruitment incentives and child care discounts for employees, they increased the staffing levels to 88%.

Funding shortages in the Military Health System and Defense Health Agency continue to affect the care available to beneficiaries and provider recruitment, said Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy James Honea during testimony before the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.

“I ask for your continued support for the Military Health System and finding innovative ways to ensure that DHA funding doesn’t compete with our warfighting priorities,” Honea told lawmakers.

When care isn’t available in the military treatment facilities, beneficiaries rely on civilian networks. However, limited resources have affected care delivery, provider recruitment and Tricare’s ability to compete in the civilian insurance market, Honea said, adding that Tricare’s reimbursement rates are tied to Medicare rates and are often too low for providers.

Honea also noted complications with the new Tricare contracts have delayed claims processing and damaged civilian medical providers’ trust in their timely payment.

Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., said the continued payment problem could result in some providers leaving the Tricare network. He cited one provider who is owed about $100,000 from Tricare.

“Our family members in Jacksonville deserve to have these outside providers available,” he said.

Tricare snafus cause medical shortfalls for military families

Military families have reported extensive issues with health care access since the new Tricare contracts began in January, which have caused medical shortfalls for some families and some providers dropping Tricare patients because of the difficulties, Military Times previously reported.

West Region beneficiaries and health care providers have reported a number of problems with the contract transition from Health Net Federal Services to TriWest Healthcare Alliance. Meanwhile, Humana Military has remained the East Region contractor, but a number of providers have reported difficulty getting paid since Jan. 1.

“I’ve taken a number of complaints from those providers,” said Honea. “They’re not being reimbursed on time. Defense Health Agency has worked with me to have those bills paid as quickly as possible.”

Medical provider shortages in the military health care system isn’t unique, as it is affecting communities across the country. However, with little to limited control over their assignment locations and providers, service members and their families are dependent on the Military Health System and local care.

When that access to health care doesn’t happen, Honea said, “It’s going to have detrimental effects to our family readiness and possibly to our military readiness, especially if we end up having to spend military readiness dollars toward making that account whole.”

Health care access is a pressing issue across all of the service branches, leaders said Tuesday. For instance, some Marines are having to seek out mental health care from civilian providers because there aren’t enough mental health providers in military treatment facilities, Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Carlos Ruiz told lawmakers. Because there are few providers and appointments available in the civilian community, they may have to wait 45 to 60 days to get the help they need, Ruiz said.

“I can’t solve that problem, so I’m looking for you to help us bring attention to it,” he said.

The process is in the “pre-decisional” stage, said DHA officials, speaking during a panel discussion at the Association of Defense Communities National Summit in Arlington, Virginia, on Monday. “We have to match our resources against the mission set that we have,” said Dr. Michael Malanoski, DHA’s deputy director.

“There will be some changes in services across the system,” he said. The process of evaluating the military treatment facilities started “many, many moons ago,” he added.

No decisions have been made yet at DHA, according to Rear Adm. Matthew Case, acting assistant director for health care administration at DHA. Any changes would have to be approved by Defense Department leadership, and Congress would have to be notified by law.

The issue is resources, Case and Malanoski said. The priority is readiness, especially at the largest facilities, where staff provide combat casualty care support, Case said. Those facilities, such as Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, must be ready to receive casualties, he said.

The Defense Health Agency has been fighting to keep its military treatment facilities staffed in recent years, as a shortage of medical personnel has affected facilities nationwide.

At the same time, officials are evaluating the situation in communities around military installations, recognizing there are locations in “medical deserts,” where not enough care is available in the civilian community for military beneficiaries.

“So we have to go ‘rack and stack’ of what the capabilities are,” Case said.

A rigorous analysis “facility by facility, location by location” is underway, Case said.

“We’re looking at not only is there an adequate Tricare network, but how [civilian medical facilities] are doing on Leapfrog scores,” he said. Those scores, compiled by a national nonprofit organization, collect and evaluate medical facilities’ information about quality and safety.

“Where are our patients going? What are the scores in those facilities? Are those facilities doing better than we are?” Case said.

At Monday’s panel discussion, a member of the Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, community asked about the status of the study, saying the community is concerned about the future of its military hospital because it is in a medical desert.

“When is this going to happen, and what should we be doing to provide input to you?” he asked panelists.

Senators Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Robert Marshall, R-Kansas, have written to DHA officials demanding answers to whether the medical facilities at Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and Fort Riley, Kansas, were being considered for downgrades.

Although Case said he couldn’t speak specifically to Fort Leonard Wood’s military treatment facility, he said, “You have a beautiful, relatively new facility, but being able to man that properly is a challenge for us.”

Meanwhile, the military medical system has been working to attract patients back to military treatment facilities after forcing many military beneficiaries to seek outside care in the private sector. That push is being driven by both costs and medical readiness. DOD’s overall health care costs have risen as patients have migrated to the civilian sector. That decline in patients has also spurred the military services to seek more private-sector training opportunities to keep their medical staff’s clinical skills current.

Officials with military exchanges expect tariffs to affect their stores, including the availability and cost of certain items. In some cases, suppliers have been stockpiling inventory ahead of time as they wait to see the impact.

President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on products coming in from China, Mexico and Canada, although he has since eased up on some of the tariffs on Mexico and Canada — at least until April 2, when more tariffs are expected. He has imposed a 20% tariff on goods imported from China.

Defense Commissary Agency officials are working with their suppliers to determine what potential effects the tariffs might have on groceries. Officials “cannot yet confirm any specific impacts, if any, of tariffs on commissary pricing or product availability,” said commissary spokesperson Kevin Robinson.

Commissary agency officials always work with suppliers to negotiate the best cost, Robinson said. The commissary agency “consistently provides savings of 25% or better to patrons, and anticipates maintaining those savings in the future,” he said.

Tariffs may not affect commissaries initially because not much food is imported, explained Steve Rossetti, president of the American Logistics Association, a trade group representing suppliers of products sold in commissaries and exchanges, as well as in morale, welfare and recreation resale outlets. Commissaries are likely to see impacts if retaliatory tariffs are enacted, he added.

Rossetti expects the military exchanges will see more effects of the tariffs. Tariffs affect prices across the country, and while military stores and customers will be affected, it won’t be disproportionate to civilians, he said.

“It’s up to each retailer and their merchandising strategy as to whether they pass it on to the customer,” he said.

One advantage military shoppers have is that they don’t pay sales tax on items in commissaries or exchanges. However, they do pay a 5% surcharge in commissaries, which goes toward renovations and construction of stores.

What troops need to know about commissaries and exchanges in 2025

Savings at military exchanges compared to civilian stores varies depending on the item.

“We have worked aggressively with our suppliers to offset as much of the tariff impact as possible to minimize the burden on our customers,” said Bryan Driver, spokesperson for the Marine Corps Exchange.

Some Marine Corps Exchange suppliers have stockpiled inventory to weather any short-term tariffs, Driver said, so those products might not be as affected. But exchange officials expect to see 10% to 20% tariffs on many categories, including computers, home office accessories, bikes, general sporting goods, patio items, storage, paint, automotive and alcohol, he said.

Tariffs ranging from 5% to 15% may affect apparel and other categories, such as baby gear, baby essentials, athletic shoes, boots, flip flops, slippers, cold weather accessories, slippers and luggage, Driver said.

Navy Exchange Service Command officials are watching closely, too, and have asked their merchant teams to hold off accepting cost increases or raising retail prices until they’ve had a chance to fully evaluate the situation, said spokesperson Kristine Sturkie.

“This also gives us a chance to evaluate options with our current and alternative vendors to mitigate the impact of cost increases as much as possible,” Sturkie said.

“We could feel some pressure in several categories, depending on where they are sourced and where products are coming from,” she said. “We’re keeping a close watch on apparel, footwear, home goods, electronics, accessories, health and beauty items and travel gear. These seem to be the most sensitive at the moment based on shifts in trade policy.”

Army and Air Force Exchange Service officials say categories that likely will be affected include electronics, appliances, food, beverages, toys, footwear, outdoor furniture, clothing and seasonal products. Tariffs on raw materials will have an effect on domestically produced goods with imported content, said AAFES spokesperson Julie Mitchell.

“However, the effects cannot be determined at this time, as they are dependent on a myriad of unknown factors,” Mitchell said, such as how tariffs are added or changed in the future, what actions suppliers and manufacturers may take, how competitors respond and how customers react.

China and garlic

Meanwhile, those who depend on getting their garlic in the commissary needn’t worry about a provision included in the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act that bans commissaries from selling fresh or chilled garlic originating from, or processed in, China.

“We have no garlic products originating from China,” Robinson said. “Thus the ban presents no impact to commissaries.”

Beneficiaries now have until April 30 to use referral approval waivers and point-of-service waivers and provide payment information to TriWest, the agency announced Thursday. The previous deadline was March 31.

Officials have extended these deadlines as West Region beneficiaries and health care providers have reported a number of problems with the contract transition from Health Net Federal Services to TriWest. TriWest officials have said they’re taking steps to improve their online portals and staffed up their customer call centers to provide more service to beneficiaries and health care providers.

Referral approval waiver: This allows Tricare Prime beneficiaries to seek care with Tricare-approved specialists, with referrals from their primary care managers, without having to go through TriWest to get those referrals approved.

Beneficiaries may seek outpatient care from these specialists with a copy of their primary care manager’s referral dated between Jan. 1 and April 30 and a copy of the Tricare West Region referral/authorization waiver approval letter.

Some families have told Military Times that even with the referral waiver, some specialists won’t see Tricare patients because of various issues they’ve been having.

The referral waiver doesn’t apply to inpatient care, applied behavior analysis, Autism Care Demonstration services, laboratory-developed tests and Extended Care Health Option services.

Point-of-service waiver: This allows Tricare Prime beneficiaries in the West Region to continue seeing providers who may no longer be in the Tricare network after the contract transition. The provider must be Tricare authorized, which means they meet certain requirements. Those using the point-of-service waiver through April 30 will pay regular Tricare Prime co-pays, instead of the more costly point-of-service fees. Using the point-of-service option doesn’t require a referral.

Tricare snafus cause medical shortfalls for military families

Payment extension: The extension for setting up payments applies to certain beneficiaries in the West Region who pay fees for their Tricare Prime or Tricare Select plans and those who are enrolled in a premium-based plan, including Tricare Young Adult, Tricare Reserve Select and Tricare Retired Reserve.

Those who paid their fees to the previous contractor using electronic funds transfer, credit card or debit card must contact TriWest to set up the payment using one of those methods. Some beneficiaries have experienced difficulties setting up those payments through the TriWest portal and customer call center, Military Times previously reported. Tricare officials have said those who paid previously by allotment didn’t have to take action because their allotment would be automatically ported over. Some beneficiaries told Military Times this didn’t happen for them.

Defense Health Agency officials, who have extended this deadline several times, warn beneficiaries could be disenrolled from Tricare, retroactive to Jan. 1, if they fail to set up their payments by April 30.

Officials have seen a decline in the number of inconvenience claims being filed by service members for out-of-pocket expenses they incurred because of delays in shipments being picked up or delivered, said Air Force Gen. Randall Reed, commander of U.S. Transportation Command, in testimony Tuesday.

“As we continue to look at performance, and [the contractor responds] to shortfalls we had seen before, we have seen within the last few weeks the number of those claims declining,” Reed said.

The contractor, HomeSafe Alliance, has resolved 100% of the claims, he said. HomeSafe was chosen as the contractor for the Global Household Goods Contract, or GHC, which TRANSCOM started gradually implementing in April 2024.

A drop in these inconvenience claims, which are tied to delays, implies delays are becoming more infrequent. Inconvenience claims are separate from claims for lost or damaged belongings.

“While there’s still work to go, we’re actually getting improvements we’re seeking,” Reed said during a joint hearing of the House Armed Services Committee panels on Readiness and Seapower and Projection Forces.

HomeSafe has experienced difficulties with getting enough movers to pack, load, truck and unload service members’ belongings, as a number of companies in the industry have declined to participate in GHC, citing lower rates paid for the work than under the legacy system.

A number of lawmakers expressed concerns about the quality of moves for service members.

“As summer approaches, many thousands of service members and their families will be moving under a program that has not quite proven capable of meeting capacity needs,” said Rep. Marilyn Strickland, D-Wash.

Constituents, including service members, have contacted Strickland with stories about the stress, financial impact and failed moves under the new contract, she said. Service members told her office of significant out-of-pocket expenses related to delayed moves and last-minute changes.

In response to a question from Strickland about what TRANSCOM does to help people in those situations, Reed said service members who experience delays can file inconvenience claims with HomeSafe for reimbursements.

Moving headaches lead military to slow new household shipping program

Following reports of issues with military moves, TRANSCOM officials said they no longer expect to fully transition all domestic shipments into GHC by the April to May timeframe, as previously planned. Spring marks the start of the busier moving season for military families.

Although TRANSCOM continues to award shipments to HomeSafe Alliance, it’s adjusting the volume awarded to the company. Reducing the number of shipments is one option to try to avoid problems for military families.

The new GHC system aims to fix long-standing problems with missed pickup and delivery dates, broken and lost items and issues with claims. It consolidates management — and accountability — under the single contractor, HomeSafe, while TRANSCOM maintains oversight. Under the legacy system, TRANSCOM deals individually with more than 800 moving companies.

Because of HomeSafe’s IT system and its interaction with TRANSCOM technology, officials can see what’s happening in the program in a way they couldn’t before — and identify problems and trends, working with the contractor in real time to fix them, Reed said.

“Because GHC is reshaping how we move service members, their families and their memories, we remain in close collaboration with the services to identify and and take action to resolve issues,” Reed said.

“While it has not been an easy path, and there have been issues, there should be no doubt we will see this through [for] the fellow service members and their families who deserve an improved moving experience, and we are going to deliver on this experience.”

In a memorandum released Wednesday outlining exemptions, Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Jules W. Hurst III listed several quality-of-life programs among them. That includes child and youth programs staff, as well as instructors or facility support staff at child care centers and Department of Defense Education Activity schools. While positions at the DOD school level are exempt, it’s not clear how far beyond that the exemptions will go.

The memorandum also lists “installation positions that support and are essential for fire, life and safety,” as being exempt. Information was not immediately available from DOD about how far those exemptions might extend beyond police and fire. It’s not clear, for example, whether commissaries are included as being exempt from the hiring freeze.

The military services for several years have been working to build up the staffs of their child care centers, as part of an effort to increase the availability of child care for military families. They’ve increased salaries and benefits to attract more employees.

Other exemptions include employees who are paid from non-appropriated funds, not taxpayer dollars. Those include exchanges and many morale, welfare and recreation programs on military installations.

The memo also provides more information on exemptions at military medical treatment facilities, specifying the staff exempt are those who provide patient care or are essential to hospital operations.

The memo includes 18 categories of exempt positions, such as positions at the Military Entrance Processing Command, as well as at depots, shipyards, arsenals and maintenance facilities. Roles essential to immigration enforcement, national security, public safety and recruiting are exempt, as are career ladder promotions and positions that are required to be filled by Dual Status Military Technicians.

Jobs that are filled by foreign national employees are also exempt in countries with labor cost-sharing arrangements, or when they’re necessary to comply with host nation agreements.

Certain in-progress permanent change-of-station moves for civilians are allowed to continue. They must be moving from a less critical position to a more critical position, and the DOD must have initiated orders or a shipment of household goods before Feb. 28.

Enroll in a health care flexible spending account: In a special enrollment period through March 31, active duty service members have the option of enrolling in a health care flexible spending account, a new benefit that could help defray their out-of-pocket health care costs.

A health care flexible spending account, or FSA, is a savings account that can be used to pay for items not covered by health or dental insurance.

Service members can contribute any amount between $100 and $3,300 in pretax earnings this year toward eligible health care expenses, and then submit receipts for those expenses to be reimbursed from their account. Each year, the Internal Revenue Service determines eligible expenses and contribution limits.

By contributing to FSAs, the taxable income decreases by the contribution amount. Savings average 30% on eligible health care expenses, according to the Federal Flexible Spending Account Prog?am, or FSAFEDS, which administers the FSA program for the Defense Department and other federal agencies. Visit www.fsafeds.gov for more information and to enroll.

Download health records from the Tricare Online Patient Portal: The TOL Patient Portal will be shut down on April 1 and replaced by the Defense Department’s new electronic health record, MHS Genesis. To keep a copy of legacy health records, beneficiaries must download them by March 31. All military hospitals and clinics have made the transition to MHS Genesis, and the previous records won’t transfer to MHS Genesis. However, providers will continue to have access to the complete health records, according to the Defense Health Agency.

Beneficiaries can also request a physical copy from their military hospital or clinic’s records management office by completing a request form in person, then returning at a later date to pick up the records. Starting April 1, to get access to your legacy records, you’ll have to complete this process.

To download the records, visit www.TRICAREOnline.com, and log in using the required credentials. The web page provides instructions.

Beneficiaries in the Tricare West Region must set up their payment with TriWest: Beneficiaries who pay for their Tricare coverage using a bank electronic funds transfer, credit card or debit card, must provide that information to the new West Region contractor, TriWest Healthcare Alliance. Officials extended the deadline to March 31 following beneficiaries’ difficulty in accessing the TriWest web portal and other issues.

This affects certain beneficiaries enrolled in Tricare Prime, Tricare Select, Tricare Young Adult, Tricare Reserve Select and Tricare Retired Reserve. Officials have assured beneficiaries that if they pay by allotment, their allotments will be transferred automatically to TriWest from the previous contractor. That hasn’t happened for some people, Military Times previously reported, and beneficiaries should check their pay statements for allotment information. The payment requirement affects all West Region beneficiaries, including those in the six states that moved to the region: Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin.

Visit the TriWest secure portal at www.tricare.mil/west, select “Sign up as a new user or log in” and follow the instructions. For assistance, call TriWest’s customer service center at 888-874-9378.

The West Region referral waiver period ends soon, so use Tricare Prime referrals for specialty care before March 31: Amid issues with TriWest, officials temporarily suspended a rule requiring beneficiaries to get their referrals to specialists approved, essentially allowing Tricare West Prime beneficiaries to bypass TriWest in order to get specialty care. This is retroactive to Jan. 1. The waiver doesn’t apply to some inpatient care and some specialty care, such as applied behavior analysis or autism care demonstration services.

The process is different for those with referrals and authorizations issued before Jan. 1 by the previous contractor. Those will be accepted through their expiration date or June 30, whichever comes first.

The consequence of a military medical system that remains unprepared to handle a high volume of casualties in any future major conflict is that “many will have survivable injuries, yet one in four will die at the hands of an unprepared system,” said Dr. Jeremy W. Cannon, a professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and a surgeon in the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Only about 10 percent of military general surgeons experience the patient volume, level of acute cases and variety of cases needed to remain designated as combat ready. According to Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the percentage of military general surgeons meeting the necessary readiness standards dropped from 17 percent in 2015 to 10 percent in 2019.

“We’re actively falling into the trap of the peacetime effect,” Cannon, a retired Air Force colonel, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

That 10 percent is caused by “grossly inadequate patient volume,” Cannon said. “They’re not doing the cases, not doing the procedures. They’re not doing what they were trained to do. That’s because they don’t have the patients in the facilities.”

He and two other military retirees who rose to high-ranking positions in the military medical establishment testified on March 11 about various initiatives the community should be taking to prepare the military’s surge capacity, including the need to invest in Level 1 trauma centers for military medical facilities.

“We’ve de-scoped our facilities to the point where they take care of low-acuity community hospital patients, not trauma patients,” said retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Paul A. Friedrichs, the former Joint Staff Surgeon.

“We need our key hospitals to be Level 1 trauma centers in partnership with the American College of Surgeons in the communities where they’re located.”

To do so, there must be an adequate funding supply, he said.

There’s no way to fix the problems without the funding to meet these unique challenges, the witnesses said. It’s a mistake to think military medical care could be provided at a lower cost than in the civilian sector and still be adequately prepared for conflict, Friedrichs added.

Costs of medical care nationwide, meanwhile, have risen about 5.1 percent per year, on average, since 1938, Friedrichs said. But since 2015, the budget for military hospitals has decreased by nearly 12 percent, according to Wicker, the committee chair.

The military medical system has been working to attract patients back to the military treatment facilities after forcing many military beneficiaries to seek outside care in the private sector.

Pentagon plans to fix ‘chronically understaffed’ medical facilities

“We need our military medics taking care of sick patients,” Friedrichs said.

There’s a comparison, for example, between taking care of a bladder cancer patient who needs a procedure to have their bladder removed, and someone who suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen and needs to have the bladder reconstructed as a result, he explained.

Meanwhile, military facilities must be fully staffed, said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Douglas J. Robb, who served as the first director of the Defense Health Agency.

That includes the full spectrum of support for critical care hospitals. Robb suggested the military also increase its collaborative workload with Veterans Affairs and civilian medical facilities, so military surgeons could experience a broader scope of cases that would bolster their combat readiness.

Instead of duplicating efforts, the Military Health System needs to work with Veterans Affairs facilities, said Friedrichs, who commanded a DOD-VA joint venture in Anchorage, Alaska.

There, he said patients “were taken care of by a joint team. It was far more efficient than building duplicative adjacent facilities. Instead, we built integrated adjacent facilities.”

Friedrichs noted there is $10 billion of unfunded facility needs in DOD and $100 billion in VA. There are opportunities to bring patients with acute care needs from the VA into DOD facilities, or bring DOD medical personnel into VA medical facilities, he said, “so that we are not wasting money on duplicative buildings and instead focusing our resources on the patients who need our care.”

It’s critical, Friedrichs added, that medics are clearly defined as being part of the joint military. “As long as we preserve this false narrative that the Military Health System is separate and not covered by the same expectation of jointness as the rest of the military, we’re going to continue to have these fruitless bureaucratic buffoonery actions that distract us from taking care of patients,” he said.

A root problem, Cannon said, is that no one within the Defense Department truly owns combat casualty care. He recommended that Congress establish clear leadership on that front.

Wicker acknowledged the importance to troops of there being enough combat-ready surgeons.

“We know that troops in combat are more comfortable taking the risks necessary to accomplish their mission if they have confidence in military doctors,” Wicker said.

Tell us how your household goods shipment went — or how it’s going.

U.S. Transportation Command is in the process of transitioning to a new system for managing the shipment of troops’ personal belongings. We want to hear from you, whether you were assigned to the new system managed by the contractor HomeSafe Alliance or moved under the legacy system, where TRANSCOM assigned your shipment to one of the hundreds of moving companies that vie for their business.

Share any lessons learned from your move. Tell us about your experience working with the mover, including any issues. We also want to hear about your positive experiences.

Include your rank, branch of service, where you’re moving from and to and your contact information.

Email reporter Karen Jowers at kjowers@militarytimes.com. Your response may be published online or in print. Let us know if it’s OK to use your name.

Russ Clark is worried that other people have been affected, too, and could unknowingly be at risk of losing their coverage.

He’s concerned that other beneficiaries aren’t checking their pay statements from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service or their bank statements and could lose coverage if their allotment has also been discontinued.

“Others may not have noticed the allotment being stopped, as it was at the same time we got our [Cost of Living Adjustment] pay increase, so someone may be thinking that the increase in the monthly paycheck was just the COLA increase,” Clark told Military Times.

Certain beneficiaries pay for Tricare Prime, Tricare Select, Tricare Young Adult, Tricare Reserve Select and Tricare Retired Reserve plans. Clark pays for Tricare Prime coverage.

The problem came about during the Jan. 1 transition of Tricare West Region beneficiaries from the previous contractor, Health Net Federal Services, to the new one, TriWest Healthcare Alliance. Tricare officials repeatedly assured West Region beneficiaries who make recurring payments by allotment that their information would be transferred automatically.

That wasn’t true for Clark.

Clark’s December pay statement showed his allotment to Tricare was stopped. During calls to Tricare and DFAS, they “assured me that I didn’t have anything to worry about,” he said.

As of March 7, the allotment has yet to be restarted. He has been making payments online to ensure he maintains coverage.

“I will pay month to month until I feel certain that DFAS won’t start this allotment again,” Clark said.

In a few months, he plans to set up auto pay using a credit card.

Military’s Tricare transition to TriWest a ‘fiasco,’ some say

“We certainly apologize for any inconvenience caused by any issue with payment,” officials with the Defense Health Agency said in an email response to questions. “That said, this doesn’t seem to be a widespread issue, but for anyone who may be having issues with their payment by allotment ... check with your respective managed care support contractor.”

The contractors are TriWest Healthcare Alliance in the West Region and Humana Military in the East Region. Information wasn’t available from TriWest officials regarding the allotments, and DFAS officials referred the questions to Tricare.

Military Times heard from other beneficiaries who faced a problem with their Tricare payments that differed from Clark’s. They previously made Tricare payments by credit card and suddenly, allotments started coming out of their paychecks without prior notification — and without their authorization.

These problems are aside from those experienced by beneficiaries who previously made their Tricare payments by electronic fund transfer, credit card or debit card. Those beneficiaries are required to set up their payments with TriWest because the sensitive financial information can’t be transferred between the contractors.

But many of those beneficiaries have encountered problems setting up their recurring payments. So, Tricare extended the deadline to March 31 for beneficiaries to input their recurring payment information. Those who miss this deadline will lose coverage back to Jan. 1, Tricare officials have warned. Beneficiaries looking to update TriWest with their payment information should visit www.tricare.mil/west.

The transition to the new contracts has been a troubled one for many military families and health care providers. Families have experienced difficulties with setting up their payments, finding in-network health care providers and getting referrals and authorizations processed. They’ve also endured long wait times with the TriWest call center.

In the East Region, health care providers have faced problems with receiving reimbursements, putting some at risk of closing their doors. A number have dropped Tricare patients because of the lack of payments.

Tricare, TriWest and Humana Military have taken some actions to start to address the issues.

Following recent reports of issues with military moves, officials no longer expect to fully transition all domestic shipments into the new Global Household Goods Contract, or GHC, by the April/May timeframe, as previously planned. The spring marks the start of the peak moving season for military families.

“We’ve noted contract performance issues and are taking measures to mitigate further impacts to service members and their families,” said TRANSCOM spokesman Scott Ross.

Although TRANSCOM continues to award shipments to HomeSafe Alliance, it is adjusting the volume awarded to the company, according to Ross. Reducing the number of shipments is one option to manage the program’s rollout, and more details about other potential actions will be released soon, he said.

The new GHC system, which began rolling out in April 2024, aims to fix long-standing problems with missed pickup and delivery dates, broken and lost items and issues with claims. It consolidates management under a single contractor, HomeSafe Alliance, which is responsible for overseeing military families’ moves.

But the rollout has been plagued by moving delays for military families, according to lawmakers and advocates, prompting TRANSCOM and service branches to take steps to mitigate the impact.

On Feb. 28, the Army and Air Force issued notices to their personal property shipping offices that any service members’ shipments that have less than a 21-day lead time must be pulled back into the legacy system, which has been in place for more than a decade.

HomeSafe officials said they requested a lead time of at least 21 days “to provide us enough time to book high-quality movers on the necessary dates.”

“We’ve heard from a number of families who have been unable to schedule their moves through HomeSafe, and others who have had to wait weeks for delivery of their household goods,” said Eileen Huck, acting director of government relations for the National Military Family Association, a military advocacy nonprofit.

Huck said she was glad to see the Army’s and Air Force’s actions.

“I’m hopeful that will prevent problems and help moves go more smoothly,” she said.

This move was a 'living nightmare' — and it's just one example from a brutal PCS season

Meanwhile, concerns about the transition have also reached Capitol Hill.

“As the military community enters the permanent change of station peak season, it is essential that our service members and their families have the logistical support they need to meet the mission,” wrote Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., in a Feb. 26 letter to TRANSCOM commander Air Force Gen. Randall Reed.

Warner, citing reports from constituents and media indicating HomeSafe is struggling to execute moves predictably and on time, pressed for details on what TRANSCOM is doing to address the issues. It was unclear how many military families had contacted Warner’s office.

During the initial rollout period last year, service members reported “record-high customer satisfaction,” Reed told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. However, Reed acknowledged as business volume increased, challenges were “uncovered” and satisfaction declined.

The scope of the problems remains uncertain, however, as relatively few moves have been completed under the system.

Since the rollout began in April 2024, HomeSafe has completed about 2,200 moves, the company said. Neither TRANSCOM nor HomeSafe would provide data on the prevalence of problems.

“While the vast majority of our moves have been successful and timely, any delay is unacceptable to HomeSafe,” HomeSafe officials said in a statement.

Each year, DOD moves about 300,000 household goods shipments, including overseas shipments. Those shipments won’t be included in the new system until their phase-in begins later this fall.

In February, about 39% of domestic household goods shipment orders were processed through the new system, while the rest remained in the legacy system. TRANSCOM has phased 133 installations — 76% of domestic sites — into the new system.

Service members and their families experiencing shipment issues should contact their moving company, or HomeSafe Alliance, depending on which system they’ve been assigned to, or the household goods/transportation office at their local installation.

Struggling with capacity

The issue, according to TRANSCOM and HomeSafe, is capacity — the amount of civilian moving companies available to pack, load, truck, unload and unpack troops’ belongings. And some moving companies have balked at signing up with HomeSafe, citing lower rates of payment.

While HomeSafe has made “significant progress in working through capacity challenges and strengthening our service provider network” over the last month, it has struggled with logistical issues related to capacity that have caused delays in pickups or deliveries, HomeSafe told Military Times.

“We sincerely apologize to every family affected by capacity-related delays, and we are dedicated to providing timely service going forward,” the company said.

HomeSafe has been building up its network, signing agreements with individual companies to ensure they have the capacity to do the work of packing, loading, trucking, unloading and unpacking household goods. An unknown number of moving companies that worked directly with DOD in the legacy system have signed up with HomeSafe.

The new system for moving troops' belongings is creating some angst

Meanwhile, HomeSafe has uncovered alleged “suspected evidence of anticompetitive activity” by some moving companies against smaller trucking companies to keep them from performing HomeSafe moves, company officials told Military Times.

“These smaller service providers have reported they are fearful of doing business with HomeSafe because of these intimidation efforts. HomeSafe has deployed various methods to stop this anticompetitive behavior,” officials said, to include informing congressional committees and appealing to the Department of Justice.

Despite the master service agreement some companies have signed with HomeSafe, some of those companies may not be taking the business because their rates are generally lower than the legacy system, an estimated 20% to 30% less, TRANSCOM officials have said previously.

TRANSCOM officials confirmed it’s possible for a mover signed up with HomeSafe to turn down a HomeSafe shipment, yet turn around and pick up that same shipment in the legacy system. Neither TRANSCOM nor HomeSafe are tracking how often this happens.

“Understandably, some suppliers might be hesitant to transition to the GHC program if they’re able to secure more favorable rates by remaining under the legacy system,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., during the Senate hearing Wednesday. “So this creates an odd situation where two programs are unintentionally positioned against one another. And TRANSCOM can incur significantly higher costs in the legacy program.

“How are you managing this [transition] so that there’s not this perverse incentive to remain in the legacy program because the rates are higher?” he asked Reed.

The difference between the payments under the GHC and in the legacy system may be narrowed in May when the new rates are set for the legacy system, and there may be less of an incentive to stay in that system, Reed said.

Under the legacy system, TRANSCOM worked directly with more than 900 individual moving companies, making it difficult for the government to hold companies accountable. Those problems culminated in the summer of 2018, when moving companies didn’t have the capacity to handle the number of moves.

“While it has not been an easy task, and there have been issues, there should be no doubt we will see this through,” Reed told lawmakers.

The reason for the contract, he said, “is to correct past performance that wasn’t as strong as it should be, and to get after years of frustration from those of us who move, and also years of frustration from [lawmakers] to help us to try to fix it.”

Visit this page for all of our latest coverage surrounding military and veteran pay and benefits.

It’s once again tax season. With deadlines fast approaching and stress mounting, here are some helpful tips to help you navigate the season.

Active duty service members have the option to enroll in a new tax-saving benefit, which became available March 3, that could help defray their health care expenses.

A special enrollment period for the new health care flexible spending accounts will run from March 3 through March 31.

In essence, a health care FSA is a savings account that can be used to pay for items not covered by health or dental insurance. Such accounts have been available for years to employees of many federal agencies and private companies.

Service members can contribute any amount between $100 and $3,300 in pretax earnings toward eligible out-of-pocket health care expenses. The Internal Revenue Service determines eligible expenses and contribution limits, the latter of which may vary by tax year.

To enroll, troops should visit fsafeds.gov, select “Qualifying Life Event” from the “enroll” drop down menu, then choose the QLE titled “Special Enrollment Period for Members of the Uniformed Services March 3-31.”

By contributing to FSAs, taxable income decreases by the contribution amount. Savings depend on a variety of factors, such as how much the service member contributes to the account, and the individual or household tax situation.

If the service member and spouse are both eligible to enroll in a health care flexible spending account through their employers and maintain two separate accounts, the household can contribute between $200 and $6,600 per year. The benefit is administered by the Federal Flexible Spending Account Program, or FSAFEDS, which is sponsored by the Office of Personnel Management.

The health care FSAs will be available to members of the active component and reservists performing Active Guard and Reserve duty. Members of the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve who are on active duty for more than 180 days — including reserve component managers — are also eligible.

Defense officials began offering service members flexible spending accounts for dependent care in 2024, which helps defray the cost of child care. Service members have until April 30, 2025, as a grace period to submit claims for child care expenses they incurred through Dec. 31, 2024.

After this special enrollment period, the yearly enrollment for the FSAFEDS will be mid-November to mid-December of each year.

About those 2024 taxes

These health care flexible spending accounts will help defray costs in 2025, but right now is also the time to get those taxes filed for 2024 — with just a few weeks remaining before the April 15 Internal Revenue Service tax filing deadline.

If you’re in the military or a military spouse, there’s no need to pay a tax preparer for military-specific tax help. Free tax software is offered through Military OneSource’s MilTax resources, which are attuned to unique military benefits and needs. You can file federal and up to three state tax returns through this software.

In addition, service members and family members have access to military tax consultants with special training in military-specific situations through Military OneSource.

The fastest and most reliable way for service members to file their taxes is electronically and to choose direct deposit if they’re expecting a refund, according to Susan Mitchell, executive director of the Armed Forces Tax Council, who recently conducted a webinar for service providers and financial counselors who work with military families.

Additionally, some installations in the U.S. operate Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) centers where you can go to get in-person tax preparation help.

Check with your military legal assistance office to see if they offer the service, and check with the Military OneSource locator. These locations have Internal Revenue Service-certified volunteers who are also trained in military-specific tax regulations.

The basics

All Defense Department tax statements, including W-2 statements, are available through the military’s myPay site — https://mypay.dfas.mil/.

There are longstanding tax filing extensions available for certain service members. While the federal tax filing deadline this year is April 15, troops stationed outside the United States and Puerto Rico can qualify for an automatic two-month extension until June 15.

That extension is designed to help troops who may have trouble getting all the documents they need. According to the IRS, even if you are allowed an extension, you will have to pay interest on any tax not paid by the regular due date of your return.

Those overseas who are unable to file by June 15 can request an additional extension to Oct. 15. But remember, any taxes due must be paid or you could be subject to both interest charges and a failure-to-pay penalty.

Tax filing deadlines for service members deployed to combat zones are extended for the period of their service in the combat zone, plus 180 days after their last day in the combat zone.

Most allowances service members receive aren’t taxable, such as the Basic Allowance for Housing and the Basic Allowance for Subsistence. But there are exceptions, such as the Basic Needs Allowance, which is taxable.

When service members are serving in a combat zone, their income for that month is generally tax-free; service outside the combat zone may also qualify when in direct support. Combat zones, meanwhile, are designated by executive order.

This year, service members in designated disaster areas should check to see whether filing extensions apply to them. For example, deadlines are extended for taxpayers affected by hurricanes Helene and Milton, and by the the wildfires in California.

Check the IRS page on disaster relief situations for more information.

Tax brackets: There are still seven tax rates for 2023, but the income levels have shifted to account for inflation. For example, single service members with taxable income ranging from $47,151 to $100,525 would be in the 22% tax bracket. Married couples filing jointly with taxable income from $94,301 to $201,050 would also be in the 22% tax bracket. For more information visit the IRS tax rates page.

Standard deductions: After adjusting for inflation, the standard deduction is now $14,600 for single filers and for married couples filing separately; $21,900 for single heads of household who are generally unmarried with one or more dependents; and $29,200 for married couples filing jointly.

Itemizing deductions: There are people who have enough tax deductible expenses that they may benefit from itemizing. The deduction for state and local income taxes, property taxes and real estate taxes is still capped at $10,000. The mortgage interest deduction is limited to $750,000 of indebtedness. Those who had $1 million of home mortgage debt before Dec. 16, 2017, will still be able to deduct the interest on that loan.

Only unreimbursed medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of the adjusted gross income can be deducted.

For charitable donations in 2024, the annual income tax deduction limits for gifts to public charities are 30% of adjusted gross income for non-cash assets, and 60% of AGI for contributions that are made in cash.

Earned Income Tax Credit

The Earned Income Tax Credit applies to eligible low- and moderate-income workers, subject to certain qualifying rules. You may qualify for the EITC even if you can’t claim children on your tax return. The credit could reduce the amount of taxes owed and perhaps increase your refund.

There are special EITC rules and considerations for military members who receive nontaxable pay, such as a housing allowance, or for those who are stationed outside the United States. For more information, visit the IRS page on the EITC for military members.

This credit is phased out at certain income levels and number of dependents. It is completely phased out for married couples filing jointly with an earned income of $66,819 or more with three or more children. The maximum EITC for that group is $7,830.

EITC helps lower-income taxpayers reduce the amount of tax that’s owed, on a dollar-for-dollar basis. A refundable credit means a taxpayer could be eligible for a refund even if they have no tax liability for the year.

That’s typically better than a deduction, which reduces the amount of your income that is subject to tax.

Child and dependent credits

Child tax credit: For tax year 2024, the child tax credit is $2,000 per child, if the child was under age 17 at the end of 2024. It’s also subject to phase out as income rises, starting at $400,000 for joint filers and $200,000 for single filers. For other qualified dependents you can claim a $500 credit.

Child and dependent care credit: You may be able to claim the child and dependent care credit if you paid for the care of a qualifying individual to enable you — and your spouse, if filing a joint return — to work or actively look for work, according to the IRS. Generally, you may not take this credit if you are married and filing separately. However, to learn more about exceptions to the rule, see “What’s Your Filing Status?” in IRS Publication 503, Child and Dependent Care Expenses.

For 2024, the amount of the credit is a percentage of the child care expenses up to $3,000 per child — with a maximum of $6,000 for two or more children — paid to a daycare provider for dependent children under the age of 13, or for a disabled dependent. There is no age limit for a disabled dependent.

The more you earn, the less the percentage of employment-related child care expenses that are allowed. Once your adjusted gross income is over $43,000, the maximum credit is 20% of your employment-related expenses, according to the IRS.

Education credits

The American Opportunity Tax Credit is a partially refundable credit that pays education expenses for students in the first four years of college. Service members can claim up to $2,500 per student, and if the credit brings the tax bill to zero, you can have 40% — or up to $1,000 — refunded.

The Lifetime Learning Credit covers up to $2,000 in qualified education expenses per tax return. It can be used for expenses related to all kinds of educational opportunities, from degree programs to technical classes. You can claim both the AOTC and the LLC on a return, but you can’t claim both for the same student or the same expense.

Student loan interest deduction: You may deduct the lesser of $2,500 or the amount of interest actually paid during the year. Income limits have increased. For joint filers, for example, the phaseout for eligibility for the deduction begins at a modified adjusted gross income of over $165,000.

Educational assistance from an employer: You can exclude up to $5,250 of those benefits from taxes.

Changes to form 1099K

The IRS is treating the 2024 tax year as a continued transitional period regarding reporting transactions involving payment apps such as PayPal and Venmo. For 2024, the 1099K forms are required for people receiving $5,000 or more, regardless of the number of transactions. Previously, the threshold was $20,000 for reporting, with the number of transactions exceeding 200.

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 changed the rules to require reporting for taxpayers who received $600 or more in the year, but feedback from taxpayers and payment processors who were confused by the new rules led the IRS to delay the $600 new reporting threshold requirement, Mitchell said.

For tax year 2025, the third-party payment processors will report transactions of $2,500 or more on form 1099K, as the final transition period.

Also notable

Adoption of a child: Taxpayers can receive a credit for up to $16,810 of qualified expenses. The full credit is available for a qualified special needs adoption, even if it costs less. For joint filers with a modified adjusted gross income of over $252,150, the credit begins to phase out.

Educators’ deductions: A number of military spouses are teachers, and they can deduct up to $300 of out-of-pocket expenses for supplies, books and other classroom materials. This deduction can be claimed even by those who take the standard deduction. Those eligible include anyone who is a teacher, counselor, principal, aide or other educator in public or private schools, who has worked at least 900 hours in the school year.

Unreimbursed moving expenses: Service members can deduct unreimbursed moving expenses related to Permanent Change of Station moves. You can’t deduct for any services provided by the government or reimbursed by the government. But while DOD covers many expenses, there still may be some that aren’t reimbursed. Use IRS Form 3903 to deduct those.

Transportation and parking: Monthly limits for the tax-free qualified benefits increased to $315 in 2024, up from $300 in 2023.

Standard mileage rates: The military move mileage rate is 21 cents per mile. Business mileage increased to 67 cents per mile, and medical mileage is 21 cents per mile.

Capital gains taxes for military homeowners: Military homeowners get an extra benefit when it comes to tax exclusions of profit from the sale of their residence. Generally, taxpayers avoid paying capital gains taxes on the sale of their home as long as they’ve owned it and used it as their qualifying principal residence for at least two of the five years preceding the sale. The amount of profit that can be excluded from taxes is $250,000 for single taxpayers, and $500,000 for married couples filing jointly. But military taxpayers can extend that qualifying time period by up to 10 years, for a total of up to 15 years, if they’re assigned to a duty station that’s at least 50 miles from the house for a period of 90 days or more.

“Nanny tax” threshold: If you hired a nanny or other household employee and paid at least $2,700 in wages in 2024, you were responsible for withholding taxes from their pay and then paying taxes of your own.

“Kiddie tax” takes less of a bite, with income limits increasing. The first $1,300 of a child’s unearned income — such as interest and dividends — is tax free for those 18 or younger, or if the child is a full-time student under age 24. The next $1,300 is taxed at the child’s rate. Any excess over $2,600 is taxed at the parent’s rate.

Energy credits: If you installed qualifying exterior windows, doors, skylights or insulation materials, or purchased a qualifying new furnace, hot water heater or central air conditioning unit, you may be eligible for a tax break of up to $1,200 per taxpayer per year, with a $600 limit per item on most types of property. There’s a higher credit of up to $2,000 for a separate category of heat pumps, water heaters and biomass fuel stoves.

If you installed equipment such as solar panels or solar water heaters, you could get a residential clean energy credit valued at 30% of your qualifying expenses.

Those who purchased a used electric vehicle or used fuel cell vehicle from a licensed dealer for $25,000 or less may qualify for a clean vehicle credit of 30% of the sale price, up to a maximum credit of $4,000. There are income limits. For example, your modified adjusted gross income must not exceed $150,000 for married couples filing jointly.

If you bought a new electric vehicle or fuel cell vehicle, that credit is $7,500, if all eligibility requirements are met. For example, the modified adjusted gross income must not exceed $300,000 for joint filers. (See the IRS checklist for more information on eligibility requirements.)

Tips and cautions

Those in the military community aren’t immune from making the common mistakes made by those in the general public. That includes entering wrong Social Security numbers, making math mistakes or omitting income documents that an employer has already reported as income to the IRS.

Mitchell, the executive director of the Armed Forces Tax Council, recommends using electronic software because it performs the more complex calculations and catches any math errors that might happen when filing a paper return. Always use the same names exactly as they appear on your Social Security card, and always double-check to make sure your bank account numbers are correct.

Print a paper copy of your electronic return and review it for possible errors.

• Getting a refund? Check the status of your refund at the IRS web page, “Where’s My Refund?”
• Didn’t receive a tax document? Contact the employer or issuing agency. If they can’t get a copy, contact the IRS for help at 800-829-1040. After you provide your information and your employer’s information, the IRS will contact the employer, but will also send you a substitute form to report the information that’s on the missing document. If the employer sends a document later with different information, the taxpayer may need to file an amended return.

It bears repeating: If you feel comfortable doing your taxes online at home, look into the free MilTax software, and remember you have trained tax consultants available by chat or phone through the MilTax resources of Military OneSource. You may be able to go to a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance site at an installation nearby or qualify for assistance at a VITA location in the civilian community.

Before you sign agreements with other tax preparers who charge fees, make sure you have clear information about the fees involved and any fees involved in their extra services.

It’s against the law for these tax preparers who offer “refund anticipation loans” to charge interest of more than 36% annual percentage rate to active duty members and their families, and fees are calculated into that rate.

Each year, thousands of doctors and other federal health professionals who work for the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security attend AMSUS Society of Federal Health Professionals’ annual conference about military and federal health care.

This year, however, AMSUS leadership decided to exclude “independent media,” according to AMSUS spokesman Kenneth McClain. He didn’t respond to questions about the definition of “independent media.”

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When Military Times further questioned why media was being denied access, McClain said AMSUS “revised the media pass policy in response to new guidelines affecting sessions and speakers.

“It was at the request of speakers who want to be able to speak without attribution. As a nonprofit, we are not part of the federal government, but to best support our speakers, we will honor their request,” McClain said in an email. Reporters who attempted to register online for the conference last week later received emails that their registrations had been canceled.

The conference may not meet requirements for media access under the Government in the Sunshine Act, which requires meetings of federal agencies be open to the public.

Gunita Singh, staff attorney for Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, questioned the decision.

“To prohibit independent media from covering such a consequential convening at a time of such rapid change does a disservice to the goal of keeping the public informed and engaged,” Singh told Military Times.

The annual conference brings together a variety of people in the federal health care sector to share information between agencies and with other professionals about trends, problems, research and initiatives.

The theme of this year’s conference, which takes place in National Harbor, Maryland, through Thursday, is “Flourishing in Health: Improving Experiences for Our Patients and Our Workforce.”

The decision to bar the media from this year’s conference comes amid widespread concerns about military health care during the rollout of new Tricare contracts.

Since Jan. 1, many military families have faced problems accessing health care following the implementation of the new Tricare contracts in the West and East regions, with multiple military families and civilian health providers reporting issues, including difficulty with obtaining referrals for specialty care.

A number of health care providers haven’t been paid by Tricare since Jan. 1, forcing some to take difficult steps such as dropping Tricare patients, taking out loans or even closing their doors, Military Times previously reported.

There is one specific session on Tricare for military health professionals listed in the four-day conference agenda. Others sessions address operational medicine; suicide prevention; obesity in the military; Space Force medical operations; perspectives on clinical quality and safety in the Defense Health Agency; military women’s health research; and other topics related to ongoing research and efforts impacting military health care beneficiaries.

Speakers and presenters include officials, researchers and other experts from the Military Health System; the services’ surgeons general; senior enlisted leaders; Veterans Health Administration; U.S. Public Health Service; and others. A number of health care contractors and vendors also attend.