My Experience with the Medical Clearance

Hello!

Today I wanna share my experience with our medical clearance. To be able to PCS to Okinawa you will have to get medically cleared. This involves a bunch of paperwork and an appointment with medical to review all your records. Your current base pretty much goes over your records to see if there would be any existing medical problems that would get you disqualified to PCS to Okinawa. They do this to make sure that you will have all the services that you and your family need while stationed overseas. If your child needed speech therapy for example, they want to make sure they can offer the same services here as they would in the states. Your current base will review your records, but your gaining base is the one that approves or denies you. I feel like my family had a relatively easy time with this process. We did have a little bit of a scare for a second but I will go into detail below. This all depends on the current services you are receiving or any special conditions that might need specific care. Besides the no fee passport, this is something you want to get started with right away. I was told it would take a very long time but for us the longest part was getting our paperwork together.

Number one thing for dependents, take care of your dental!! I am not a fan of the dentist, like many of you I'm sure. But I had put it off for so long that I found myself not having visited the dentist in 3 years. I knew I had cavities, I just never made the time to take care of it. But when I found out we had orders, I was kicking myself in the butt! One of the requirements for medical clearance is to be cleared by your dentist. They have to sign a form indicating what "category" you are in. They want your dentist to be able to sign you off saying you wont need any dental care in at least a year. Well, of course I needed work and I couldn't get signed off right away. The bad part is that you can't get the process going unless you submit all your paperwork, including the dental form. So it actually took me about 3 weeks to complete all my dental work and finally get signed off. If I had been up to date on everything the whole clearance would've gotten done much quicker. So go see your dentist! Make sure you are good to go.

Besides dental, there are a couple of other papers that need to be filled out and turned into medical. My husband went to the clinic, told them we were going overseas and needed to get his clearance done, and they gave him the paperwork and even walked him through most of it, it was simple stuff. There was a form for school aged children that needed to be completed as well. It was to inform them of any special services that are being recieved by your children such as speech or physical therapy. Once we filled out all the paperwork, my husband return to medical turned them in and we got our screening appointment. For this appointment, you want to make sure you have all your medical records from off base services. My son was seen at an off base pediatrics office so I had to get his medical records from there. I also got my records from the OBGYN from when I had my son.

I was a little nervous about this appointment because I didn't want to be disqualified. I had recieved some counseling after I gave birth and I was worried that it would be an issue. I knew in advance that they only have a problem with it if you have been seeing a therapist for longer than 6 months. At the time, I was at about 5 months. So I was worried for a bit. But everything worked out in the end.

The day of the appointment, we showed up and waited. They called us back to a conference room. We actually didn't see a doctor. It was just two ladies that said the doctor was running behind and they were just gonna ask us a couple questions. They said our paperwork looked good and there shouldn't be any issues. To be honest, I don't remember what the questions were except for one. They asked me if I had ever seen a therapist. I said yes. They kinda stopped and I could tell there was something wrong. They asked me how long and I told them the time frame. At this time, one of them said to the other "That's less than 6 months." They asked me what I was seen for and if I got discharged, which I didn't, I just felt good and stopped going. They said they thought our case was gonna be simple but now they weren't sure and asked us to wait outside. You can imagine the anxiety I was feeling. I felt like everything would've been great except for this little issue. So we waited and eventually one of them came back out to the waiting room and said we were good to go :-)

So that was all. A little bit of a scare but it all worked out. We didn't hear back from them but we obviously got approved since we are in Okinawa now lol. It was a much easier process than what others made it sound like. But our family doesn't have a lot of medical issues. I'm sure the process is different for everyone. The thing to keep in mind is that they are not trying to go after you or deny you just because. They just want to make sure you are able to get the same services you need in the states while overseas. While it would suck to get denied, they are doing so because you won't be able to get the services you need at that specific base. Some services are very limited overseas and if your family really requires them, you might be better off staying stateside.


Thanks for reading and good luck with your clearances!