Please look into DHA, their policies and procedures. I am only speaking of feedback from lots of military familes.
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We need to completely eliminate the Defense Health Agency (DHA) and return control of the Military Health System (MHS) to the military services. The DHA was created by Congress as a cost-cutting measure and it was never intended to enhance military healthcare.
A constellation of underfunding, noncompetitive hiring practices, and mismanagement on the behalf of the DHA bureaucracy are threatening the capacity to care for the vulnerable MHS patient population.
Our commitments to Active Duty Servicemembers, retirees, and their families are evaporating as budget cuts ravage the MHS under the guise of standardization of care that is dictated by the DHA. Severe staffing shortages are forcing many Active Duty spouses, retirees, and retiree families out to civilian networks, which is depleting Tricare funding. Many applicants to MHS positions lose interest because they are more readily hired at civilian practices. Hiring and credentialing are protracted and compensation in the MHS is pale in comparison even to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Once patients enter the civilian networks, they face substantial delays in care and the cost of their care dramatically increases, compared with the costs of care when it is provided by the MHS. Most civilian networks have started treating Tricare akin to Medicaid due to poor reimbursement, so these individuals are facing a dire situation. Meanwhile, the DHA is hiring more administrators and inflating its operating costs as the focus transitions from providing excellent care to emulating the operations of civilian health systems (i.e., marketplaces).
We need folks like you to speak up and help revive our dying military treatment facilities. It is my opinion that dismantling the DHA and shifting authority back to the military services and local facility Commanders would lead to both better and cheaper care for our patient population. In a time of a recruiting crisis, we should affirm our commitments to Servicemembers, retirees, and their families, rather than degrading them.