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!
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
The Truth About No Fee Passports
Hello!
Today's topic was a big one for me. So much that this is actually the reason my husband had to push his "report no later than date." The "no fee passport!"
The Big Question: DO I NEED A NO FEE PASSPORT???
Simple Answer: YES!
Long Answer: Uhh... Still not sure.
A no fee passport is basically a passport that the military provides for you at no cost when you are pcsing overseas. It is only good for traveling between the US and your overseas duty station. This passport is at no cost to you, hence the name. You can make an appointment with the passport office (mps building in our case) and they will walk you throught it. Now I will mention, the active duty member is not required to get one. They are fine traveling with their orders. So you just have to worry about getting them done for your family members.
A little back story on my problem... I am not a US citizen, which means I cannot get a no fee passport. I am fine traveling with my country's passport. I was told whenever I got to Okinawa, my passport would get a "SOFA" stamp and I would be good to go. SOFA stands for Status of Forces Agreement which is what lets us stay in the country without worrying about a visa or overstaying our welcome. This only left my son needing a no fee passport for our PCS. As soon as I found out we were pcsing we went down to the post office and processed regular tourist passports for my son and my husband. I knew we wanted to travel to different counrtries while stationed here so I thought it would be good to just get it done.
Now, I was under the impression that we wouldn't need no fee passports since we already had tourist passports. My thinking was that no fee passports where for people who didn't own any kind of passport. It made sense in my head that people shouldn't be required to shell out the $120ish fee when the military is making them move to a foreign country. So no fee passports where available when you didn't see the need for a tourist passport. But for people who already had one, it shouldn't be a big deal. You can do more with a tourist passport anyway. So I just let time pass by thinking we have passports, we can literaly get on a plane right now and go to Japan no problem.
I had doubts about my conclusion so I asked and googled and got mixed answers. It wasn't until our PCS briefing that they told me my son would still need a no fee passport. So here we go trying to get this no fee passport processed in time. It was a little frustrating because it can take 8-12 weeks to get it back. When I asked what would happen if we didn't get it in time, they said my husband might have to go ahead of us. I was not about to fly accross the world with a one year old by myself. I kept thinking, I dont need the no fee passport, they are gonna stamp mine, why can't they just stamp his!? But no. We had to have it. They said my husband would not be able to outprocess without it. So we actually had to go through the process of pushing his date an extra two weeks in order to have this passport. Funny thing is the passport is identical to the tourist passport, except for a little stamp... But what can you do.
Now, the reason why I say I'm still not sure about the answer to this is that I have read and heard from others that were not required the no fee passport. There are people who have traveled with tourist passports and had no problems. But maybe every situation is different. I can't say for sure. I can only go by my experience. My advice: go get the no fee passport. It's free, just get it done. Even if you are like me and people tell you it isn't neccesary. Just do it. Then you won't have to worry about it any of this. Make sure to get it done ASAP because it does take about 2 months to get it back. Oh and in case you were wondering, they will not expedite it! Again, my experience. Ive heard from others saying the military is capable of expediting it if they see fit but in my case they said absolutely not.
Thanks for stopping by!
A no fee passport is basically a passport that the military provides for you at no cost when you are pcsing overseas. It is only good for traveling between the US and your overseas duty station. This passport is at no cost to you, hence the name. You can make an appointment with the passport office (mps building in our case) and they will walk you throught it. Now I will mention, the active duty member is not required to get one. They are fine traveling with their orders. So you just have to worry about getting them done for your family members.
A little back story on my problem... I am not a US citizen, which means I cannot get a no fee passport. I am fine traveling with my country's passport. I was told whenever I got to Okinawa, my passport would get a "SOFA" stamp and I would be good to go. SOFA stands for Status of Forces Agreement which is what lets us stay in the country without worrying about a visa or overstaying our welcome. This only left my son needing a no fee passport for our PCS. As soon as I found out we were pcsing we went down to the post office and processed regular tourist passports for my son and my husband. I knew we wanted to travel to different counrtries while stationed here so I thought it would be good to just get it done.
Now, I was under the impression that we wouldn't need no fee passports since we already had tourist passports. My thinking was that no fee passports where for people who didn't own any kind of passport. It made sense in my head that people shouldn't be required to shell out the $120ish fee when the military is making them move to a foreign country. So no fee passports where available when you didn't see the need for a tourist passport. But for people who already had one, it shouldn't be a big deal. You can do more with a tourist passport anyway. So I just let time pass by thinking we have passports, we can literaly get on a plane right now and go to Japan no problem.
I had doubts about my conclusion so I asked and googled and got mixed answers. It wasn't until our PCS briefing that they told me my son would still need a no fee passport. So here we go trying to get this no fee passport processed in time. It was a little frustrating because it can take 8-12 weeks to get it back. When I asked what would happen if we didn't get it in time, they said my husband might have to go ahead of us. I was not about to fly accross the world with a one year old by myself. I kept thinking, I dont need the no fee passport, they are gonna stamp mine, why can't they just stamp his!? But no. We had to have it. They said my husband would not be able to outprocess without it. So we actually had to go through the process of pushing his date an extra two weeks in order to have this passport. Funny thing is the passport is identical to the tourist passport, except for a little stamp... But what can you do.
Now, the reason why I say I'm still not sure about the answer to this is that I have read and heard from others that were not required the no fee passport. There are people who have traveled with tourist passports and had no problems. But maybe every situation is different. I can't say for sure. I can only go by my experience. My advice: go get the no fee passport. It's free, just get it done. Even if you are like me and people tell you it isn't neccesary. Just do it. Then you won't have to worry about it any of this. Make sure to get it done ASAP because it does take about 2 months to get it back. Oh and in case you were wondering, they will not expedite it! Again, my experience. Ive heard from others saying the military is capable of expediting it if they see fit but in my case they said absolutely not.
Thanks for stopping by!
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