Okay, guys...I am tricare prime and I see a civilian doctor for everything. There is no co-pay for civilian providers if you are Tricare prime. As far as I understand that is for all regions. Now there may be a co-pay if there are no military clinics in the area, I'm not sure if that is why others have to pay it. I saw military doctors before and got fed up and got referred out of the system. I would definately go tricare prime, and then if you are not satisfied as to be referred out of the system to a civilian, or before you even get that far, ask the first doc she sees to refer her back to her origional doc for "continuity of care". Something else, here in our area in VA, the military is served first, so if you are tricare standard, the active duty and the tricare prime patients get first appts, and with something like diabeties, I would want a doctor that is easily reachable. With standard, you may not get in as quickly, because they consider that you can go to any doctor and pay the fees because that is what you choose to do. I would go Prime deifinately!
Another benefit of marrying, would be that you would get BAH (housing $ that is nontaxable) and family sep pay while you are in OCS. Probably amount to about $900 more a month, since you will be an E-5. Other benefits would be commissary, and exchange, things like that....the BAH and the health benifits are the biggest perks.
By the way...congrats!! We went before the justice of the peace, too, only because we wanted to get all the paperwork done (ie. id's, page two) before we left for the wedding (we stayed gone for about a month) so ours was only a matter of three weeks from getting offically married to the big ceremony. If it works better for you, go for it!
