VA Care for Full-Timers

Since VA medical records are on-line, we thought it would be easy for my husband to get VA care. Boy, were we wrong! The local VA branch office (district office is almost 200 mi away) does not have an emergency room. They said it would take 6 wks to 2 months to get assigned to and see a Primary Care (PC) physician. We made an appointment for 2 months away (first available) then went to the base hospital ER. After treatment, they told him to tell the VA he needed to be treated by a specialist (not PC physician) within 1 week.
The VA said they could care less what the ER doctor said. They said he would have to wait to see his PC physician who could refer him to a specialist; but only if HE saw fit to do so. Needless to say, we had to made more ER visits. Finally we saw the PC who agreed he needed to see the specialist, but it would be 2-4 weeks before he could get that appointment. We explained we were leaving the area in a few weeks due to the 90 day limit at the FamCamp and asked him to put the referral in the records so he could get right into the specialist at our next location. NO! He said. We would have to agree to stay here and be treated or start all over with a PC physician at our next location. No one we talked to was able to do anything. We were lucky to get a medical exception to extend at the FamCamp, but that was a big deal with one manager approving it one day and another manager saying, "no way" the next.
I read the posts from 3 years ago, but didn't learn anything that could help. We do have Tri-Care standard, but no supplement insurance since my husband is 100% with the VA. Any suggestions out there for dealing with the VA?
My husband really wants to 'see the USA' before his health gets any worse.
Thanks

Yes, you can have VA care while fulltiming....you just have to play by the VA rules...We both have VA as our primary care provider and use Tricare while on the road....Here's what we do.....We summer camp in our home state, so we set up all appts. for that time frame....May, we see our CPC Dr. who refers us, as needed, to other Drs. in that medical center....re-new Rx needs, etc. all being completed before we head out again in Sept. Our meds are mailed to us as needed. While on the road, if needed, we use the Tricare....They are right when they say you will have a hard time seeing a VA Dr. while on the road, even though your records are online....so use the tricare for emergencies and urgent care issues....Our advise would be to make an appointment with the VA rep. at your "home" VA hospital and ask them to explain in detail on how this works.....I am a 40% Disabled Vet. and my hubby is a 2 Purple Heart recip. and a 24 yr. Army retiree.....This works for us.....

It's the VA rules I'm trying to understand and, I guess, get around. We are in our home state and thought we'd get all the 'normal' stuff taken care of. Actually we could have done that. It was the 'abnormal' stuff that caused all the problems. The normal stuff we could have gotten taken care of within the 90 day FamCamp stay limit, but the referrals necessary to take care of the unexpected problems have caused all the problems.
And, unfortunately, my company (I'm retired) stopped offering the Tri-Care supplement as of 2010. The cost of OHC was so prohibitive for both of us that we had to drop my husband. Therefore he has to rely on the VA.
Glad it is working so well for you. Perhaps, once these problems are solved, it will work better for us, also.
Thanks, again.

Well I have encountered the same problem. I started on a year long trip from CA and the VA gave me years worth of meds. Well my trip was delayed and my meds were running out. I changed my home of record to FL and as well got set up with the VA at Eglin AFB. They wouldn't give me a whole year of meds. So I have to have it sent to my mail forwarding service then I pay to have it mailed to my location. For the most part I've only used the VA for free medications. But I think I'll have to give up using the VA for anything. They just aren't RV full-timer friendly.

Really, I don't need the VA anyway. I just wanted to stay connected. I do have two insurances. I just don't like dealing with the extra paperwork. I guess I'm gonna have to deal with it.

Oh well, I got that off my chest.