VA health insurance

@ondami

what is VA health insurance? 

I’m a Veteran and i receive healthcare from the VA.

I’ll be going to DR to get care in a clinic that treats Vetarans with the VA FMP. They can only treat for service connected disabilities.

i consider VA healthcare as insurance; may have mis-spoken.  I too get healthcare from the VA; healthcare beyond my service connected disabilities.

I think I’ve found my answer.

Thank you for  your reply.

Look into the VA Foreign Medical Program. you have to get seen in one of the qualified clinics which services Veterans with service connected disabilities only under the FMP. Go to MedVets. There are three clinics I reached out to, MedVets was my top choice.  again, under the FMP, only service connected disabilities when overseas.

@ondami following

Is having health insurance a new requirement for residency? We didn't have health insurance in place here when we applied for residency because we weren't living here yet. We’ve gone through two renewals, most recently last month, and we’ve never had to provide proof of health insurance.

That said, even if Migracion doesn’t require it, I highly recommend anyone spending any amount of time here having coverage that will work here!     

No it's not. You need the insurance policy in case you need to be deported

I read on line that medicare will reimburse you in a foreign   country as long as you went to the closest hospital ( maybe it needs to b an emergency )… the example used in the article was someone living in Alaska needed to go to the hospital and the closest one was actually in Canada  ( i guess they were living in the eastern part ) so they they had to pay for it otherwise  the patient  would had have to driven through Canada to go to the lower 48 states and it would have taken hours  , now I’m sure many on here will dig a little deeper , and I’m  hoping to hear more back , there were a few more examples about Mexico also …. just adding to the conversation on health care on a lazy Saturday afternoon

@Tippj That wouldn't apply to anyone living outside the United States.

IIRC the Medicare website itself is pretty clear on where it is/isn't valid, so you shouldn't need to rely on third-party info or anecdotes -- but if you do need more advice, a good resource is the State Health Insurance Assistance Program (I don't think we're supposed to list URLs here, but it's easy enough to find if you google that name -- or "SHIP" + "Medicare").

Pretty sure trying to make Medicare work outside the US is a lost cause.

Official websites like that are fine! 

    I read on line that medicare will reimburse you in a foreign   country as long as you went to the closest hospital ( maybe it needs to b an emergency )… the example used in the article was someone living in Alaska needed to go to the hospital and the closest one was actually in Canada  ( i guess they were living in the eastern part ) so they they had to pay for it otherwise  the patient  would had have to driven through Canada to go to the lower 48 states and it would have taken hours  , now I’m sure many on here will dig a little deeper , and I’m  hoping to hear more back , there were a few more examples about Mexico also …. just adding to the conversation on health care on a lazy Saturday afternoon        -@Tippj

That only applies if you are in the USA and close to  Canada or Mexico and go to a hospital that is closer to you in one of those countries than one that is in the USA.  That rule is very specific and does not apply when you are travelling out of the USA to a place like the DR.

Medicare will not reimburse you  for care in the DR..

There are several clinics in the DR, Sosua and Puerto Plata have them, that provide medical care to US Veterans.