Dear Veterans,
We would like to inform you how you can obtain psychiatric help in Germany depending on the insurance you have. If you are interested getting help from us, please click on the following link or click on the button „english“ on the menu.
1) For every crisis: The veteran crisis line (link opens new tab), is open to all veterans in a crisis. You don’t have to be enrolled to VA in order to get help. The phone number is 00 1 800 273 8255 from abroad and if you follow the link you can chat with an operator and you can even be called back on your german phone number.
2) For service-connected conditions: The VA Foreign medical program. This Program is great if you got a service-connected condition, as it will pay for „health care services, medications and durable medical equipment for service-connected conditions and conditions associated with and held to be aggravating a service-connected condition“ (taken from the VA site). You have to enroll in the program before claiming anything, but enroling is quite easy. You just have to fill out a one-page form with your basic information and that’s it. FMP should cover all costs, including medication, medical equipment and medical costs no matter if physician is private or not as long as they are service connected, even at 0%. The downside is that you usually pay upfront, there may be quite some time before you get your money reimbursed through the FMP, so you ‚ll have to have a lot of money on hand to pay upfront. Another problem is that they pay in U.S. Treasury checks. As noone uses checks nowadays you may have trouble checking them in, but some banks still check them in (DKB, Sparda, Sparkasse) if you have an account in Germany. However, some physician who spacialise in Veterans including ourselves deal directly with FMP, so you don’t have to pay upfront and VA wanted to change the payment method into direct deposit. For more Information about the FMP, call 0800 1800011 (from Germany) or visit the FMP Page. You can also download the FMP brochure, which has a good overview of the program, or the FMP Guide, which has more detailed information.
3) Your non-service-connected conditions should be covered by your health insurance. Health insurance can be:
– If you are on active duty, retired, or on the reserves, you could have tricare. Tricare is operated outside the U.S. by International SOS. For those beneficiaries with other health insurance, Tricare is always the last payer. If you have any questions, you can call: 0800-589-1599 (toll-free number). In contrast to FMP, tricare doesn’t cover all costs, it depends on the contract you have with them.
– International health insurance (e.g., Cigna or UnitedHeath, which is used by many contractors who work for the United States Armed Forces). Please ask your broker to tell you exactly what health care you are eligible for.
– German Statutory Insurance (e.g., AOK, TK, BKK, IKK, Barmer). It covers all physicians and psychotherapists with a „Kassensitz“, meaning those who have a contract with the statutory insurance. We’d like to point out that we do not have a contract with the statutory health insurance and don’t plan to.
– German private insurance (e.g., HanseMerkur, Debeka, DKV, Axa, Allianz, Generali). If you have private health care, you can choose whether you visit physicians who have a contract with the German statutory insurance system or go see a private doctor or psychotherapist. In order to get private insurance instead of statutory, you must either be self-employed or have a high income (over 5.550€ per month) as an employee.