O-V-E-R-S-E-A-S M-E-D-I-C-A-L S-C-R-E-E-N-I-N-G
is a pain in the ass. Well to me it is, I’m sure others may have had a much smoother process, but we’ve been getting a bit of a runaround. Before I jump into sharing some of my tips for your overseas move, I’m just going to share the hell of a week we’ve had in trying to get our medical signed off. Let me just tell you, we have yet to get anything signed off and we started on Monday.
On Monday, we both had appointments scheduled with our PCM (primary care manager) at the air force base nearby. Since A is here for language school, we’re not exactly attached anywhere. Therefore, I have a doctor in the air force. Before going into our appointment, I probably should have made a point to do some research on what paperwork I might need. We went into our appointment with nothing in hand. As soon as A was called in, he came back out like 15 minutes later and that didn’t seem right to me.
You’re done already?
No … we have to go to a Navy hospital to get our screening done. They can’t do it here.
Any normal reaction, I wasn’t exactly happy with this. I have no idea why they couldn’t see us, but she still took me in anyways and wrote up a little report. Medically, I’ve already had my annual check-up and well woman’s exam not too long after we moved here. Once we left our appointment, we called the navy hospital to schedule medical screening 2.0 and thankfully we were able to get one set for the next day.
After A was done with school, I swooped him up and we made our way to Walter Reed to hopefully get our screening squared away. Let me tell you guys, Walter Reed is ginormous … well, it is to me. They have a neat navigation system inside the hospital, which made it easier to find where we needed to go. When we were scheduling our appointment, the guy (apparently he’s in charge of medical screenings) let us know what forms we needed to fill out and that you could print them off online.
Welp, we arrive and check-in. So far, so good. And then the receptionist drops a bomb on us (sorta).
Your spouse can’t get her screening done here, she needs to see her PCM.
I’m just feeling all kinds of delightful at this point. After sitting, waiting, and slightly seething, we get called in. Thankfully, the guy explained the whole process to us and answered all of our questions. It wasn’t that much of a mess once he cleared things up for us, but I still have to go all the way back to my PCM to have her sign my clearance forms. The guy handles all of A’s medical screening. A managed to get part of his screening done but has to go back next week to finish the last half.
Originally I was going to talk about getting your dental screening done on this post, but that can easily be its’ own post.
So, did we check anything off of our list for medical screening? Nope. Absolutely nothing.
Tomorrow, I’m planning on calling my clinic to see if I can just come in to get my papers signed off or if I have to make another appointment.
After all of that hullabaloo, here are some tips to tackle your overseas medical screening:
- Get the paperwork before you schedule your appointment. Definitely our big mistake, it didn’t set us back that much because they can easily give you the forms. I’m not sure if the paperwork is the same for all branches, but here’s the forms we needed for the Navy:
- DD2807-1 It’s your medical history report and needs to be completed before your appointment (Active Duty Member + Dependants)
- NAVMED 1300/1 (Active Duty Member + Dependants)
- NAVMED 1300/2 This is a medical, dental, and educational suitability checklist, but it needs to be signed off at the appointment (Active Duty Member)
- NAVPERS 1300/16 (Active Duty Member)
The forms can easily be found online, Google does wonders!
- Make sure you’re caught up on everything, which can easily be done in advance. Like your well-woman’s exam and immunizations.
- Stay calm. It can be pretty stressful and it has been a little bit for us. There’s so much paperwork and things that need to be crossed off.
- Don’t procrastinate! The screening itself doesn’t really take that long, it’s getting the clearance you need to move that takes a while. Once they’re cleared, you can get your orders … hopefully. We all know how that story goes.
- Don’t be like us and go in empty-handed. Do a little research before and grab those forms! We’re idiots, lesson learned.
I know this post can’t speak with everyone since we’ve all had different experiences, but this has been our experience so far. I’m so glad that I decided to get caught up on my medical as soon as we moved here. It makes things a little smoother since I don’t have to wait for appointments to happen.
Next week, I’ll be talking about the dental part of the screening, which is page 3 of the NAVMED 1300/1. We’ve heard cases where dependants didn’t have to get a dental screening and I was hoping strongly for that. Why? Because I didn’t want to find and schedule a dental appointment during our short stay, but sadly, I had to. More on that on Monday!
Feel free to share your experiences or ask any questions about the process so far!
Over the next few months, here is what I’ll be covering:
- Brief Intro to the Olmsted Foundation
- Overseas Medical Screening
- Dental Screening
- Dog Health Screening
- Passports / Visas / IDs
- Familiarization Trip
- Overseas Household Goods Move
- Traveling with Pets
Oh man! Getting our paperwork to go to Hawaii was a headache but it was all good once we got there. So glad the guy was able to explain everything without being a dick ?
Yes exactly! If the guy was a dick, I would have been livid. I’d be like dude, don’t get mad at me because so many people don’t know the process! I rarely vocally get mad, but I was about to throw down if it came to it haha
Wow! I never thought about all this. I figured it would be tough, but I guess I never thought about all that would be required. I’ve always lived in America. I do sometimes worry about taking vacations out of the country because what if something happens?
Same with us, this is our first time overseas via military and quite possibly our last because of his job. We’re definitely making the most of it, but all the headache is kind of worth it. Vacay via military, they limit where you can travel to. But there’s just sooooo much going on right now…
Ugh – so frustrating!!! We actually did all the overseas medical and dental screening this September because my husband applied for a lateral transfer. Annoyingly, after specifically receiving permission to at least apply for the transfer, the submarine community completely blocked his transfer paperwork and said no. It all felt like such an annoying waste of time! Especially since I had to make a special trip to the dentist for it. I really don’t like the dentist!
It is! Overall, super annoying. I dropped my medical forms to the Air Force clinic on Friday, so I’m hoping to get them back… Soon. But I feel kind of doubtful… I hate the dentist too! I have a filling tomorrow and they couldn’t give me x-rays last week when I went in. They needed As orders… I’ve never had that issue before, but well Hawai’i is laxed. Ohhh sub community, we were still surprised that we were even accepted into this program he’s in. Sub community isn’t always flexible, but the time lines worked in favor for once!
Never had a problem getting x rays the past 3 dentists I’ve had, that’s messed up. Anyways sounds like a typical military day to me. Sometimes my hubby knows more about people’s jobs than they know themselves.
@disqus_VDWE49KzYG:disqus This is my second time dealing with a dentist, but the first time was such an easy process. All they needed was his social and bam. The one here, I had to bring his orders … Thankfully I’m done with dental over here.
Argh. Moving to another country as a civilian is hard enough, add the military element to it. Err, nope. Good luck!
Yeah it’s seriously fun times … haha
I feel your pain! I went through a similar process trying to get on my husbands orders when moving to Hawaii. I don’t think I can count on my hands the amount of times I went to Belvoir’s Hospital! Good luck in this process, I know it can get hectic!