Beneficiary Travel from American Samoa

Every other entry in this file is smaller than this one in practice. American Samoa's VA clinic does primary care; the specialists are 2,600 miles away in Honolulu. Whether VA reimburses the trip is what decides if the referral is real. The eligibility routes are federal, at 38 U.S.C. 111 and 38 C.F.R. part 70, and there are several. You qualify if you have a service-connected disability rating of thirty percent or more; or if you are travelling for care related to a service-connected disability and your rating is under thirty percent; or if you receive VA pension; or if your annual income is below the set rate and you meet the other conditions; or if you have vision impairment, a spinal cord injury or disorder, or double or multiple amputations and are travelling for care through a VA special disability rehabilitation program. Travel to a compensation and pension examination, and travel to obtain a service dog, are also covered. Certain caregivers may be eligible. Read the second route carefully, because it is the one most often missed. A veteran rated at ten percent who is flying to Honolulu for treatment of that ten percent condition is eligible. The thirty percent figure is a floor for travel for anything, not a floor for travel at all. This catalog does not hide this entry from a low rating for exactly that reason. The gap is still large. Among veterans in the territories enrolled in VA health care in fiscal year 2022, VA officials told GAO that thirty-five percent of enrolled veterans in American Samoa were not eligible for travel benefits. That is the best figure of any territory, against fifty-one percent in Puerto Rico, fifty-six in the Northern Mariana Islands, fifty-nine in Guam, and seventy-six in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It still means roughly one enrolled veteran in three here pays their own way to a specialist. What that costs is not a mileage rate. GAO recorded VA's estimate that a round-trip flight in January 2023 between Guam and Hawaii cost more than $3,200, and between the Northern Mariana Islands and Hawaii more than $3,700. Pago Pago to Honolulu is a comparable distance on a thinner route. GAO noted that the Secretary has statutory authority to prescribe additional regulations extending travel payments to people not otherwise covered, and has not used it for this. Two practical notes. VA generally reimburses round-trip costs tied to a scheduled appointment, so an unscheduled trip is at risk; the exception is emergency care. And travel to a compensation and pension examination is reimbursed by VA or by the examination contractor depending on who conducts it, which matters here because contract examiners fly in to American Samoa rather than being stationed on island. If you do not qualify under any route, ask the American Samoa Government Office of Veterans and Military Affairs what is available locally. GAO noted that the U.S. Virgin Islands veterans office reimburses health-related travel when VA will not; whether American Samoa's office does the same is a question to put to it directly, and this catalog does not record an answer.