The planned outage is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Friday, Oct. 9, and end Sunday, Oct. 11. As of Thursday, information was not available about what specific time the outage is expected to end on Sunday.

During the outage, beneficiaries won’t be able to make any updates to their DEERS record. Pharmacies and healthcare providers may not be able to check a patient’s Tricare eligibility.

Officials note that there are other benefits systems that rely on DEERS, and the outage may affect those systems, too.

The Defense Manpower Data Center is updating DEERS, and it will be moving to a new cloud environment.

“The Defense Health Agency is working closely with DMDC during this time,” officials said in an announcement about the planned outage. “The goal is to keep any disruption as small as possible.”

DEERS is a database of information about military personnel, Defense Department and military service civilians and their family members. To get Tricare coverage, beneficiaries must be registered in DEERS.

Beneficiaries who need to make changes, or who need to check their information in DEERS, should do so before the weekend by visiting milconnect before 9 p.m. Friday.

This year’s Tricare Open Season begins Nov. 9 and ends Dec. 8. During that time, beneficiaries can enroll in or change their health plan for the next year. Changes made during open season will take effect Jan. 1, 2027.

Andrew Tangen, attorney and superintendent of the Veterans Assistance Commission of Lake County, Illinois, alleges that Lukas Simianer and his company, VetClaims.ai, posted defamatory statements on social media accusing Tangen of having “backed fraudsters from his government email to maintain … [a] monopoly” in assisting veterans with their claims.

Simianer said he developed the VetClaims.ai system following his own challenges with the VA disability claims process.

Tangen’s lawsuit, filed Sept. 15 in federal court in the Western District of Texas, alleges that Simianer “attacked the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, The American Legion, and [National Association of County Veterans Service Officers], as a monopoly” in assisting veterans with claims.

Then, Tangen alleges, Simianer pointed veterans to the company he owns, which sells services that veterans service organizations provide at no cost. The lawsuit names Simianer and Patriot Claims, LLC, doing business as VetClaims.ai, as defendants.

In an interview with Military Times, Simianer said he has no intention of removing the comments about Tangen and the other veteran service organizations.

Instead, he would like to bring more attention to the issue.

“Truth is the ultimate defense to defamation,” Simianer said.

Tangen ‘tagged and taunted’

Tangen is also the president of NACVSO. Simianer has challenged Tangen, the VFW, DAV, American Legion, and the NACVSO to debates about the current system versus the benefits of the VetClaims system of assisting veterans with their claims. VetClaims.ai is based in Pflugerville, Texas.

The VACLC, which Tangen heads, is a public, county-funded veterans service agency within Lake County government. It’s staffed by officers accredited by the Department of Veterans Affairs who provide the same pro bono claims assistance as private veterans service organizations.

For years, veterans and their advocates have complained about a handful of for-profit companies, sometimes referred to as “claims sharks,” that take advantage of veterans by charging them excessive amounts of money to help them file disability claims, when a number of veterans service organizations provide these services for free.

Meanwhile, the Department of Veterans Affairs has reduced the claims backlog to under 70,000 for the first time in six years. The average wait time is now about 78 days.

Federal law limits who can act as an agent or attorney in preparing, presenting or prosecuting a benefits claim with the VA. They must be accredited by the department to do the work.

The law also limits when veterans can be charged fees. Accredited agents and attorneys generally aren’t allowed to charge or receive fees for claims representation services provided before a veteran receives notice of the initial decision.

Tangen alleges that in the fall of 2025, a veteran came into the Veterans Assistance Commission of Lake County and told Tangen that a woman who claimed she worked for VetClaims.ai asked him for $1,250 “to file a VA claim he could file for free.” He checked and found that VetClaims.ai is not accredited by the VA.

Tangen referred the matter to the Illinois Attorney General for investigation. According to the lawsuit, Tangen said nothing about the referral in public and stepped aside after handing the matter to authorities.

“He spends his career helping veterans obtain their earned benefits at no charge,” the lawsuit states. “Reporting improper solicitations to the authorities is part of that job.”

Tangen told Military Times in late September that VetClaims.ai isn’t the only company his office has referred to the Illinois Attorney General.

The state attorney general’s Military Rights Veterans Bureau “received one complaint from a Veterans Assistance Commission superintendent claiming VetClaims.ai is exploiting veterans for disability claims while sharing personally identifiable information to an artificial intelligence platform,” said April McLaren, deputy press secretary in the Office of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul. “While the Attorney General’s office is actively investigating similar companies and claims, we do not share details of ongoing investigations.”

The core allegations of the lawsuit are about Simianer’s alleged defamation of Tangen.

“The accusations attack the honesty on which Mr. Tangen’s life’s work depends,” the lawsuit alleges. “He brings this suit to clear his name, recover the damages allowed by law and have the statements identified in this complaint taken down.”

Tangen told Military Times he has never charged veterans for his work. He became a county veterans-service officer to help veterans without taking a share of the benefits they are able to recover, he said.

His only compensation is the fixed public salary he receives as the VACLC superintendent, and he works regularly with the VA, the VA Office of Inspector General, state authorities and members of Congress on deceptive practices that harm veterans.

Months after Tangen filed the report, the state attorney general, Simianer, and his company “told a national audience that Mr. Tangen was corrupt,” the lawsuit alleges, referring to a June 4 post by Simianer on X.

Tangen denied the accusation and posted the government email showing he had reported VetClaims.ai to the Illinois Attorney General.

For weeks, Simianer “tagged and taunted Mr. Tangen across social media platforms,” the lawsuit alleges.

In his lawsuit, Tangen asks the court to require Simianer and VetClaims.ai to remove false and defamatory statements, and asks for an unspecified amount in damages.

Simianer told Military Times that at no point has the Illinois Attorney General’s office conducted an investigation on VetClaims.ai.

Charging for claims assistance

VetClaims.ai charges veterans $1,250 for their services. The company draws on a plethora of resources to help veterans back up their claims, Simianer said.

“When they go to VetClaims.ai, within six days they will have everything they need to file a claim,” he said. “We support them through the appeals process at no extra cost,” he said.

Simianer and the company website acknowledge that VetClaims.ai is not accredited by the VA.

“This country was not built by men who follow unjust laws,” Simianer said. “Anybody who looks at this law and has any ounce of legal research to their credit or capability would understand that vets are the only federal claimants who are forced to fail first before they can seek professional help.

“Some make the argument you should go to the VSOs. They’re free. God bless, free stuff is great. But if free stuff worked, there wouldn’t be a $1 billion market. The VA’s own accredited attorneys are taking home $33 million a month out of veterans’ own back pay. “

By law, the VA may withhold a portion of a veteran’s back pay to pay accredited representatives directly, under strict conditions, and the fees are generally limited to 20%. According to the VA website, $37.2 million in these fees were paid in August.

Simianer contends the current system costs veterans money. He cites an example of one veteran who had been rated by the VA with a 20% disability since 2013, but with three months of working with VetClaims.ai, he was granted 80%.

“Being stuck at 20% instead of 80% from 2013 to 2026 due to an incompetent [veteran service organization] cost this veteran roughly $233,000 in unpaid compensation,” Simianer claimed. “And closer to $350,000 once you count what that money would have earned had it been in their hands all along.”

According to the VetClaims.ai website, the company’s veteran experts “use advanced AI to quickly and accurately prepare claim strategies by generating compliant medical evidence, documents, and communications that meet the VA’s strict standards.”

Meanwhile, the VA has spent millions of dollars on automated systems, including a program called Automated Decision Support, which pulls together information and a variety of evidence for claims adjudicators to consider when deciding a claim. The department has also increased the size of its processing staff.

Veterans of Foreign Wars defended its record of helping veterans, noting that they have modernized their processes alongside the VA and its technology partners, among other actions.

“Over the past decade, our program has evolved to reach more veterans, now representing more than 600,000 beneficiaries who received more than $16 billion in earned benefits last year alone,” said Ryan Gallucci, executive director of the VFW Washington Office.

VA-accredited representatives are subject to “rigorous training, professional conduct requirements and legal obligations to protect veterans’ information, Gallucci added.

“Veterans deserve to know the difference between accredited professionals providing accountable representation and unaccredited profiteers exploiting regulatory loopholes under the guise of innovation,” Gallucci said. “There’s no debating that if someone fails to adhere to basic accreditation standards, their motivations are likely somewhere other than serving veterans.

“Instead of recycling outdated tropes about VA or flashing their largesse across the internet, perhaps these unaccredited actors should spend more time understanding how today’s veterans’ benefits system has evolved to better serve veterans.”

Starting in November, veterans won’t have to pay insurance premiums for three months, ending in January 2027, according to a Department of Veterans Affairs announcement.

All told, the break is expected to save veterans nearly $150 million in insurance payments, officials said.

On average, veterans pay about $110 a month for VGLI coverage. VGLI insurance premiums vary and increase every five years as veterans age. Payments range from $30 a month for the maximum $500,000 in insurance to $2,200 a month for the maximum coverage for veterans 80 and older.

All veterans with VGLI policies are eligible for the premium holiday if they have a current policy that hasn’t lapsed or been cancelled due to non-payment of premiums.

Eligible veterans don’t have to take any action. They will be automatically exempted from the three months of premium payments and will be notified by letter or email within the coming weeks if they are eligible. Many veterans pay by allotment from military retired pay, or by withdrawals from their bank account.

Those veterans who paid in advance can either receive credit on their policies for three months or ask for refunds, officials said.

Officials said the program’s financial performance has been “incredibly strong,” making the premium holiday possible.

“VA is all about making life better and more affordable for veterans, and this premium holiday will help the men and women who served this nation keep more of their hard-earned money,” said VA Secretary Doug Collins in the announcement about the initiative.

Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance coverage doesn’t automatically carry over after leaving the military. Everyone leaving the military with SGLI coverage qualifies to sign up for VGLI, with certain time limits.

However, VGLI is more expensive than SGLI, so experts advise shopping around for other life insurance options. One advantage of VGLI is that veterans who sign up within 240 days of leaving the military don’t need to prove they’re in good health.

“We went suddenly from business attire to very casual, and that happened overnight, so we had to adjust very quickly to that shift,” he said during a recent interview with Military Times.

Even now, customers haven’t returned completely to previous norms, he said. There have been some significant shifts in tastes, and fashion needs have focused more on beauty products and footwear.

“We’re meeting the needs of the customer, as customers transition to a different focus, both in apparel and in other categories,” Shull said.

Shull, who retired in June, is the longest-serving director in AAFES’ 131-year history and the first civilian to serve in that position. He’s an Army veteran and came into the job with a variety of commercial retail experience, where his primary focus was improving the customer experience.

AAFES and all the services’ exchange systems are open to eligible military customers of all branches of service.

In his 14-year tenure, Shull fought to extend the online exchange benefit to all honorably discharged veterans; reduced AAFES’ debt from $2.4 billion to zero; increased customer satisfaction to 95%; fought off efforts to privatize or consolidate military stores; and weathered the COVID-19 pandemic to keep stores open and customers safe, among other accomplishments.

“Tom Shull spent his career working on behalf of service members and military families,” said Eileen Huck, director of government relations for the National Military Family Association. “He recognized the importance of the exchange to military families, especially those stationed overseas, and worked tirelessly to ensure that military families had access to essential products at reasonable prices.”

When he came aboard in 2012, Shull changed AAFES’ heavy focus on private-label brands and included more choices in name brands in a variety of areas.

“We should have focused on the fact that our service members want to receive the same respect and opportunities that their counterparts do off the installation,” Shull said, noting that he made decisions based on data.

The agency pivoted to expand choices of name brands like Michael Kors and Ralph Lauren, and it focused on providing new movies. It showed first-run movie premieres in deployed areas and offered name-brand eateries on installations, he said.

The exchanges provide these products and services at varying discounts, but purchases are also tax-free. AAFES has been expanding to partnerships with companies like Home Depot and Bass Pro Shops.

AAFES still provides a robust selection of private-label options, which are generally cheaper.

Primary focus: young troops and families

AAFES’ core customers are young, active-duty service members and their families, Shull said.

“We do everything we can to provide for their needs,” he said.

Their efforts have paid off: In 2025, AAFES’ customer satisfaction rating was 95%, up two points from 2024. Ten years ago, the rating was 68%.

Part of meeting the needs of the military community has been expanding their customer base.

“His greatest legacy was expanding the benefit to a larger veteran group,” said Steve Rossetti, president of the American Logistics Association, representing companies that sell products and services to the military resale community.

Under Shull’s leadership, AAFES’ customer base has more than doubled, from 12 million to 30 million. It expanded its online shopping benefit to all veterans who served honorably.

“It was one of those things that I was so honored to be a part of,” Shull said. “It took us a long time,” he said, but it is a meaningful benefit for veterans to be able to shop online tax-free.

Since Veterans Day 2017, when they became eligible, more than 1 million veterans have created accounts on ShopMyExchange.com, spending $700 million. Previously, veterans who didn’t retire from the military generally didn’t have online exchange shopping privileges.

In addition, since Jan 1, 2020, all veterans with service-connected disability ratings from 0% to 100% can shop in-store at military exchanges, and more than 600,000 have used their new benefit in AAFES stores.

“Our customer really values their lifelong connection to the military community, and that really is apparent, not just in their gratitude for being able to receive this benefit, but in terms of sales and earnings that we can then dedicate to active duty service members and their families,” Shull said. “Veterans and even disabled veterans pay forward to support active duty.”

AAFES has returned about $3.4 billion in dividends out of profits to the military community to support quality of life since 2012.

“That has become really more important than ever, especially as during certain times with certain administrations there has been a shortage of appropriated funds to support quality of life,” Shull said.

Looking back on his time as director, Shull’s biggest challenge was navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. The AAFES team aggressively acquired personal protective equipment, such as masks, gloves and acrylic protective screens, and it balanced the safety of employees and customers in a great time of uncertainty, while continuing with the ever-important mission to provide needed products to military customers.

The exchanges first experienced the effects of the pandemic in the Pacific, then in Europe before the disease moved to the continental United States.

Throughout his tenure, Shull led the effort to shore up AAFES’ financial underpinnings. The agency reduced its debt load by $2.4 billion, down to zero, giving AAFES more flexibility and capacity to move quickly to fund operations in various circumstances.

The team has aggressively reduced its overhead costs. Without furloughs or layoffs, it reduced the number of personnel by 40%, from 40,000 to 24,000, through attrition.

“We pay our associates well and executives well,” he said, but they don’t exist to pay high bonuses or to give extraordinary dividends to shareholders. “We exist to serve soldiers, airmen, guardians, Marines, sailors and their families,” Shull said.

A ‘sacrosanct’ benefit

In his years at AAFES, Shull has come to describe the military resale system as “sacrosanct.”

“I feel that passionately,” he said, “because it’s such an important benefit.”

He’s weathered multiple efforts, mostly within the Defense Department, to privatize, consolidate, or otherwise drastically change the commissary and exchange benefits.

“There’s always been a very high reluctance by retailers if they were interested in acquiring the stores, to support service members down range, among other things,” he said.

AAFES has more than 300 operations supporting deployed troops in Southwest Asia, Eastern Europe, the Pacific and Africa.

“We have 24 mobile field exchanges, which aren’t inexpensive, 53-foot retail trailers that rapidly deploy to disaster zones, contingency locations, training exercises, without any taxpayer dollars,” he said. “A commercial retailer would shutter exchange facilities in remote and isolated locations, because there would be no financial justification for keeping them open.”

In addition, there would be no financial incentive for private sector stores to sell military clothing items at cost; or to serve the 3.5 million school lunches AAFES serves at DoD schools overseas each year at cost; or to contribute profits to installations’ quality of life programs.

Commercial entities might not put the same emphasis on hiring military spouses and veterans that AAFES does, which has resulted in hiring 68,000 since 2013, he said. Not all of those are still within the AAFES ranks, but they do have access to an associate transfer program, where spouses can apply for jobs wherever their spouse may be stationed in the next permanent change of station move.

AAFES has also increased the credit toward retirement from five to seven years for veterans joining their workforce.

The next steps for Shull remain to be determined.

“I want to spend more time with my family. They’ve been so supportive. The reason I’ve been able to continue to focus on the military is because they’ve been so supportive … Serving those who serve has been the honor of my life,” he said.

He’s confident AAFES will be in good hands with the next director and CEO, Brad Bingham.

The two have worked together for 14 years. Bingham was most recently deputy director and chief financial officer.

“He’ll be very committed to continuing the positive momentum we began 14 years ago. He understands our culture, he understands the need to focus on the core customer, the service members and their families,” Shull said. “The time is right for me to move on. I’m ready to have the next generation carry this great company forward.”

“It’s an order that’s long overdue,” Trump said during a signing ceremony at the White House, flanked by more than a dozen military spouses who will be part of the new commission. The President’s Military Spouse Commission will make suggestions for improving quality of life in the areas of spouse employment, housing, education, childcare, healthcare, deployment-related support “and just about everything else you can think of,” Trump said.

He noted the strains of separation from loved ones deployed overseas and the frequency of permanent change of station moves.

These are “generational issues that are long overdue to address,” said Jennifer Hegseth, wife of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and chairman of the commission, which will include more than 20 members.

For more than a decade, military spouses have struggled with unemployment rates above 20%, in addition to various problems with housing, lack of affordable childcare and persistent issues with access to health care.

The commission’s duties will include connecting with military spouses to determine common areas of concern, according to the executive order.

Commission members will include Christie Mullin, the wife of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, as well as the spouses of the service secretaries, spouses of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and spouses of the services’ senior enlisted advisers.

“It means the world to me that you highlight the enlisted corps,” said one senior enlisted member’s wife who spoke at the ceremony.

Trump said that collectively, these spouses have more than 400 years of experience as active-duty spouses.

“America couldn’t have the strongest military in the world without the love and devotion of our remarkable military spouses, who make extraordinary sacrifices for our country,” Trump said.

The spouses will serve without compensation, but they may receive reimbursement for travel expenses. The group will meet each month at the White House and will provide a report on the issues at the end of each fiscal year for as long as the commission exists. The commission will end two years from now, unless the president extends it, according to the executive order.

It’s unclear how or if the commission will work with the congressionally mandated Department of Defense Family Readiness Council, which is now in the process of being reconstituted. That council hasn’t met since DOD ordered a review of all advisory committees in early 2025. For over ten years, the council examined issues affecting military families. At most, they met twice each year.

A congressional push to improve quality of life resulted in pay raises in 2025 that targeted younger enlisted troops, as well as other initiatives. But service officials and families have said there are lingering, persistent concerns in areas such as childcare, spouse employment, housing and healthcare, among others.

Previous initiatives during the Biden and Obama administrations also aimed to raise awareness of issues for military families.

On July 2, two men approached the young sailor, claiming they had lost their wallets and needed help paying for a hotel room.

“The men gained possession of his phone under the pretense of entering reimbursement information electronically,” the father wrote in an email to Military Times. “Shortly afterward, he discovered an unauthorized transfer from his Navy Federal Credit Union account.”

Young service members are increasingly targeted by financial scammers who, in recent years, have employed everything from romance and investment schemes to fraudulent debt-relief offers and rental and housing scams during PCS season. Military spouses have also been targeted.

The Federal Trade Commission reported that military consumers, including active duty, veterans and families, lost $584 million to fraud in 2024.

The incident with the sailor, who is stationed in Suffolk, Virginia, occurred around 5:30 p.m. in the parking lot of a Wawa in Norfolk.

The scammers were able to use his banking app to transfer a large sum of money, according to Norfolk Police Department spokeswoman Noel Lipieko.

“These scams only take seconds to complete,” Lipieko said. “Detectives say entry-level military personnel do appear to be disproportionately impacted by scammers and remind everyone to always be cautious about letting someone you don’t know use your cell phone, by politely declining or offering to call for help on their behalf.”

The investigation into the incident is ongoing.

Carrie Foran Sepulveda, vice president for fraud and physical security strategy at Navy Federal Credit Union, called the scam “digital mugging.” Navy Federal has seen an increase in these parking lot scams over the last few years, she said.

Military-connected consumers are also particularly vulnerable to scams because of frequent moves and changing addresses, said Jason Stverak, chief advocacy officer for the Defense Credit Union Council.

Defense credit unions, meanwhile, use a multi-layered approach to fight fraud and scams, he said. These efforts include consumer education and employee training, but also extensive oversight of the financial institution’s own systems through real-time transaction monitoring, alerts that allow members to confirm or deny suspicious activity, and other checks.

Financial institutions, tech companies, government agencies and law enforcement, among others, are working together to find ways to prevent these scams and help victims recover money when possible.

“I know the military community is a very giving community,” Foran Sepulveda said. However, handing someone an unlocked phone “is the difference between handing them a $20 bill and handing them your whole wallet,” she said. “Even the kindest, most generous person is not going to say, ‘Take my ID, take my credit cards, take everything.’”

Parking lot scammers have also used other tactics, such as feigning an emergency, to gain access to a person’s phone and money. Beyond the in-person encounter, fraudulent phone calls, emails and texts have also proven to be a frequent medium for scammers.

A scammer may pretend to be someone else or send a text message that appears like an innocent wrong number before steering the conversation into precarious territory. The unpaid toll violation notice is another common scam, and some have reported getting calls about being imminently arrested due to not showing up for jury duty.

Foran Sepulveda says Navy Federal and other financial institutions are taking steps to educate their members about the ever-evolving scams.

Financial institutions like Foran Sepulveda’s are liable when fraud occurs with unauthorized transactions, but not for authorized scams. While financial institutions work to detect fraud internally, the problem takes on new complexity when criminals work directly with the target to set them up for a payday.

“If the scammers can convince you, get that trust built with you before you even open your [financial institution’s] app, there’s just no way for us to know what happened before,” Foran Sepulveda said. “At some point, it is your money, and we have to let our members make their own choices.”

There are some red flags institutions look for, however, such as wire transactions — especially high-dollar moves. Once such a scam is detected, financial institutions attempt to prevent money from leaving the account.

Foran Sepulveda said Navy Federal also works with a company that uses artificial intelligence to “scam the scammer,” getting the account information for the money transfer.

So, if a member wants to send money to what they might perceive as an appealing account, “whatever story [they] might come in with, I feel confident in saying no. … I know this account is being used to get scam dollars,” Foran Sepulveda said.

Experts suggest the following when spotting and avoiding scams:

• Watch out for tell-tale signs, including intense pressure to quickly move money.
• Decide on a family code word in case a scammer calls asking for emergency money for a family member “in trouble.”
• Be aware that scammers are now often using AI-generated voice impersonation.
• If you are the victim of fraud or a scam, contact your financial institution immediately and report it to law enforcement.
• Ignore scam texts, but know that they are getting more clever.
• If receiving a call from someone claiming to be from your financial institution, hang up and call that institution directly.

New programs have launched at Naval Station Norfolk and the Hampton Roads area in Virginia, as well as at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. Programs launch within the next few weeks at installations in the San Diego, California, area and around Seattle and Tacoma, Washington.

The additions will bring the total number of installations served by MFAN’s PCS Pantry Restock program to 17 across six states. Part of that program is the Fresh Funds initiative that provides the grocery stipend.

The other areas where the program operates are Fort Hood and Fort Bliss, Texas, and Camp Lejeune, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point and MCAS New River in North Carolina.

Families in the areas can request the assistance from MFAN directly through its website.

The program was established in response to MFAN’s research over the years that has found military families often face significant out-of-pocket costs when making permanent change of station moves, which can exacerbate financial problems. In the nonprofit’s most recent survey, MFAN found that more than 40% of military family respondents reported low or very low food security.

MFAN’s recent research found that more than 60% of active-duty families who made moves in the past two years paid more than $1,000 out of pocket for expenses related to their move, over and above what the Defense Department pays to move them.

For example, during these relocations, families must replace food, cleaning supplies and other items they couldn’t bring from their previous locations.

MFAN is partnering with Instacart, an online grocery delivery and pickup service, and the program includes delivery of the items to the families. CVS Health is a lead supporter of the PCS Pantry Restock Program.

“Meeting military families where they are — especially during the disruption of a relocation — requires partners like Instacart who share our commitment to making food easier to access,” said Shannon Razsadin, chief executive officer of MFAN, in a statement to Military Times. “Our research shows food insecurity remains a serious challenge for too many military families, and partnerships like this are an important part of the solution.”

How it works

The program starts with MFAN’s PCS Pantry Restock Box to newly arriving families who have signed up. Service members with at least one dependent are eligible, regardless of rank.

The box is stocked with pantry staples, cleaning, and paper goods and delivered to families’ homes, and is valued at $150. After receiving the box, families are invited to fill out a survey, and those who qualify may receive a one-time Fresh Funds code for a $125 grocery stipend, for up to three months, to order groceries and essentials through Instacart. The program doesn’t include military commissaries.

More than 6,000 military families have benefited from the PCS Box program to date.

Across the board, childcare providers struggle with financial issues, with about one in five reporting food insecurity, and about one-third struggling with debt.

Childcare providers across the board are experiencing high levels of stress and depression, researchers with the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska found.

In looking at potential solutions to bolster the military childcare provider work force, researchers also noted that poor access to behavioral support is a major reason for turnover, and there’s a high level of acting-out behaviors among children in military childcare.

The research, conducted by the Buffett Early Childhood Institute, provides more insight into military and civilian childcare providers, their needs and their differences.

Among other findings, the researchers determined that a one-time retention bonus of $500 would retain six out of 10 of those who were at risk of leaving for another year.

“You’d be shocked at how little it would take to keep them,” said Walter Gilliam, executive director of the Buffett Early Childhood Institute. “It’s because they want to stay.”

A societal issue

If there aren’t enough childcare providers, fewer children can get care. Access to affordable, high-quality childcare is key to their quality of life, to service members’ readiness and to military readiness, said those who spoke at congressional briefings this week held by the institute, in partnership with the National Military Family Association.

While childcare is a readiness issue for the current force, it’s also a readiness issue for the future force, since many military children follow in the footsteps of their military parents.

Sabrina Dalton, the wife of a Space Force guardian, said she was a preschool teacher until her first child was born more than 11 years ago. She left the work force after failing to find infant care. For her family, like many others in the military, they had many discussions about how to make the numbers work, weighing childcare costs and employment, she said.

But for eight years, until they moved to a state with free pre-Kindergarten for her youngest, she was out of the work force. They were never able to secure on-base childcare.

Dalton, who is the chief operating officer for Operation Child Care Project, said many of the spouses who seek them out to discuss childcare are also struggling with food insecurity and other issues, such as credit card debt, that are related to the effect the lack of childcare has on spouse employment.

As defense officials, lawmakers, private organizations and others have worked for decades to find ways to fill in the gaps of childcare, there has been more of a focus on recruiting and retaining childcare providers.

Stephen Simmons, deputy assistant secretary of defense for military community and family policy, said defense officials have worked on overhauling the compensation models for military child care providers and have been hiring specialists who can help with special needs, such as behavioral problems, in military child care centers.

Since June 2025, different efforts have reduced the amount of unmet need from 12,000 child care spaces to about 9,000 on wait lists across the Defense Department, Simmons said.

Half of the unmet need is located at about 20 installations, he said. And the problem can’t be solved solely by building more child development centers, which can take six years in the military construction process.

This need for child care is a societal issue, being felt across the country, Simmons said, with local, regional and national shortages of child care providers.

Those employees are critical to providing child care of high quality for military children.

“We’re going to change the idea that daycare is where you park a kid so a parent can go to work,” said Raleigh Duttweiler, chief impact officer of the National Military Family Association.

These are the most formative years of a child’s life, and they deserve to be in high quality childcare, she said.

‘It’s a calling’

According to results of the 2023 research — made public at briefings this week — of the 91 on-base military childcare providers who were surveyed, 63% of those said low pay is the leading reason for leaving the field, compared to 54.8% of the 231 military providers off base and 63.8% of the 24,285 non-military child care providers.

The on-base providers were indeed twice as likely to have actually left the field in the previous year as those off base, with 33% reporting leaving in the previous year.

Yet, military childcare providers are more committed to the field, with 51% of on-base providers planning to make it their careers.

For many of these employees, Simmons said, “It’s a calling.”

Many of the on-base providers are also older and more experienced, Gilliam said. On-base providers had a median of 20 years of experience in the field, compared to 18 years for military providers off base, and 16 years for non-military providers.

The down side, Gilliam noted, is that they also may be getting closer to retirement.

It’s unclear how many of the providers who left the field did so because of permanent change of station moves, since some are military spouses.

In addition to retention bonuses, another solution is to provide better access to support in dealing with children who have challenging behaviors.

Researchers found that a major reason for provider turnover is poor access to behavioral support. That access is “very weak” in off-base military child care programs, they found. More than half of those programs permanently expelled at least one child in the previous year, compared to one-third of on-base programs and 39% of non-military programs.

The rates of children’s mental health concerns are also greatest in off-base care, although about half of classrooms across the board reported that at least half or more of the children in their classrooms were “externalizing” their problems, or acting out.

More off-base military providers and non-military providers reported that children were internalizing problems, or exhibiting physical signs, such as unexplained headaches or stomach aches.

According to the most recent Blue Star Families Military Lifestyle Survey, 20% of active duty families with children have at least one child receiving mental health care, and another 13% would like for their child to receive care.

Other findings of the research into child care providers include:

• Stress is high across the board among providers, with the highest rate, 24%, reported in on-base providers, followed by 23% in non-military and 18% in off-base military providers.
• Depression rates are also high across the board, with about one-third of providers screening positive for depression.
• On-base providers and those providing care for military children off base are also more likely to have childcare credentials. Nearly half hold a Child Development Associate credential, the most widely recognized credential in early childhood education.
• On-base providers have better benefits, with nearly 60% having access to health insurance, 65% with retirement benefits, 54% with paid family leave and 42% with access to employee assistance programs.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., raised concerns about anti-competitive tactics, questioning the practice of allowing Express Scripts — the largest pharmacy benefit manager in the United States — to have the contract as exclusive administrator of the Tricare pharmacy program, while owning and operating two mail-order pharmacies, Express Scripts Pharmacy and Accredo Specialty Pharmacy.

She questioned whether Express Scripts drives more business to itself, pushing local pharmacies out of the Tricare network and limiting beneficiaries’ access to more personalized local care.

“That is a clear conflict of interest,” Warren said during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services’ personnel subcommittee. It’s “an open invitation for Express Scripts to milk the federal government, kick out competitors, and steer big bucks to itself.”

Warren, ranking member of that subcommittee, said DoD requires the Tricare pharmacy contractor to own both a pharmacy benefit manager and a pharmacy.

The contractor, Express Scripts, receives a fixed administrative fee per prescription filled at retail pharmacies or the mail order pharmacy, said Dr. David J. Smith, a retired Navy rear admiral who is deputy director of the Defense Health Agency. The contractor can’t generate revenue from the prices of drugs, he said, and the DoD model eliminates common commercial industry profit mechanisms.

Under the mail-order program, the government buys the drugs, and Express Scripts dispenses the drugs and are paid that administrative fee. The amount of that fee, or other information about the contract, is not public knowledge, as DoD and Express Scripts consider it proprietary information.

Beneficiaries pay $14 per prescription filled through the mail order pharmacy and $16 at network retail pharmacies. That money isn’t kept by Express Scripts; it goes to the Defense Health Agency, said Adam Kautzner, president of Express Scripts and Evernorth Care Management. Beneficiaries can get their prescriptions filled at military treatment facilities at no charge.

In general, DoD has been trying to move to mail order because it’s cheaper, Smith said, and because of the convenience for beneficiaries.

DoD continues to find ways to deliver the benefit to make sure beneficiaries have access to their medication, in a “fiscally responsible way,” he said, adding that they’re also working on ways to shore up the supply chain for medications.

But as the government contractor, Express Scripts decides which pharmacies are in the Tricare retail pharmacy network and how much they are reimbursed.

Since 2022, more than 13,000 local pharmacies have left the network, leaving nearly 400,000 military families scrambling to find a new pharmacy in network, Warren said.

Currently, there are 46,000 retail pharmacies across the country that voluntarily participate in the Tricare retail pharmacy network, Kautzner said. As a result, 98% of beneficiaries have a retail option within 15 minutes of their home, he said, which exceeds the contract requirements.

Of the 46,000 pharmacies in the network, 16,000 are independent pharmacies.

Among those pharmacies that left the network was Roden-Smith Pharmacy in Clovis, N.M. Its owner, Micah Lansford, testified that the terms of the contract Express Scripts offered his pharmacy forced them out of the program in 2023.

Under the previous contract, the pharmacy had been reimbursed an average of about $0.37 below their actual cost for the 6,750 prescriptions they filled, causing the pharmacy to lose nearly $2,500 in 2022.

Under the terms of the contract Express Scripts proposed for 2023, Roden-Smith would have lost nearly $9 on average for each prescription and $60,000 for the same volume in 2023.

Lansford described the real-life consequences for the military community of. having fewer local pharmacies.

“Community pharmacies like mine provide a higher level of personal care, easier access,” he said.

He gave the example of a disabled U.S. Air Force retiree, whose caregiver relied on Lansford to review each monthly fill of medications, reconciling any changes and making sure his medications still made sense.

He also spoke of young active duty spouses who could no longer use his pharmacy drive-thru to pick up an antibiotic for their child, but are instead waiting in long lines to get onto base, hoping the antibiotic is in stock at the military pharmacy.

Greg Reybold, vice president of the American Pharmacy Cooperative, which includes about 1,500 independent pharmacies, said while Express Scripts touts the savings of the mail order pharmacy, it’s cheaper to fill prescriptions at the retail pharmacies than through Express Scripts mail order.

Filling generic drugs at Tricare retail pharmacies is cheaper for beneficiaries, and for the Defense Health Agency, he said. If for example, the drug costs the pharmacy $3, the beneficiary pays that instead of the usual $16 Tricare copay.

When 13,000 retail pharmacies left the network, he said, “the only winner was the Express Scripts mail order pharmacy,” because beneficiaries were forced to use that pharmacy.

Reybold and Lansford both called for an independent audit of the pharmacy program.

“We have a strong desire to serve these people, and want to be there for them,” Lansford said. “And we want a fair deal to provide service.”

In a letter to one beneficiary dated July 2 and provided to Military Times, TriWest officials said they had discovered a security incident April 16, in which an unauthorized person gained limited, unauthorized access to TriWest information and downloaded it.

“We are unaware of any misuse of your information,” officials stated in the letter, but they went on to say TriWest is offering a free credit-monitoring service for those who feel it’s needed.

The unauthorized person obtained health-related and other personal information, specifically names, Department of Defense Benefits Numbers and beneficiaries’ ZIP codes. Officials said that in fewer than five instances, the information also included Social Security numbers, addresses and dates of birth.

About four million beneficiaries are covered by TriWest, the managed care contractor for the Tricare West Region. Active duty, retired, National Guard and Reserve, and their family members, survivors and certain former spouses receive their health care under DoD’s Tricare program, with eligibility determined by the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System, or DEERS.

TriWest is notifying each beneficiary about what information was involved in their specific case.

The timing of the notifications was unclear, since at least one letter was dated July 2, about two and a half months after the incident occurred.

“With regard to timing, as soon as the incident was discovered, TriWest took immediate action to prevent any further unauthorized activity and worked diligently with the government to notify affected individuals, consistent with applicable law and notification timelines,” TriWest officials said in an email response to Military Times.

The company hired a third-party forensic expert to review what information was accessed during the incident.

Beneficiaries who want to use the free credit-monitoring service, offered through Experian for 24 months, should enroll by the deadline provided in their notification letter, using the activation code and instructions included in the letter.

Those who find suspicious activity should notify the TriWest Healthcare Alliance Breach Response Line, at 1-833-918-1296. Beneficiaries who believe they are victims of identity theft should file a report with the Federal Trade Commission at identitytheft.gov.

The company has taken steps to prevent any other such incidents, officials said, including increasing security controls related to password resets, strengthening system access monitoring tools and providing additional employee education on identifying and mitigating the different types of cyber attacks.