Mental-Health Access Increased

TRICARE, the military’s managed health-care agency, now is offering expanded access to qualified mental-health counselors. Under the change, beneficiaries can choose between independent mental-health counselors that are certified by TRICARE, or supervised mental-health counselors. All mental-health counselors would hold appropriate professional master’s degrees and proper accreditation. While supervised counselors would work with patients only after referral and under super vision by TRICARE, patients would be able to use either types of counselors. Beneficiaries will continue to have access to counselors they had been using before implementation of the change.