Beneficiary Travel from the Northern Mariana Islands

With one clinic open two days a week, most of what a Commonwealth veteran needs from VA is off island. Whether VA pays the airfare is therefore the eligibility question that decides the most here, and the Commonwealth has the worst numbers on both sides of it. The cost. The Government Accountability Office recorded VA's estimate that a round-trip flight between the Northern Mariana Islands and Hawaii cost more than $3,700 in January 2023. That was the highest figure GAO published for any territory; the Guam to Hawaii comparison was more than $3,200. The eligibility. Among veterans in the territories enrolled in VA health care in fiscal 2022, VA officials told GAO that fifty-six percent of enrolled veterans in the Northern Mariana Islands were not eligible for travel benefits. The routes in are federal, at 38 U.S.C. § 111 and 38 C.F.R. part 70, and there is more than one. You qualify with a service-connected rating of thirty percent or more; or when travelling for care related to a service-connected disability with a rating 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 programme. Travel to a compensation and pension examination and travel to obtain a service dog are also covered, and certain caregivers may be eligible. The second route is the one most often missed and the one that matters most on a small island. A veteran rated at ten percent flying out for treatment of that ten percent condition is eligible. Thirty percent is a floor for travelling for anything, not a floor for travelling at all. This catalog does not hide this entry from a low rating for that reason. Only four veterans living in the Commonwealth received VA pension in fiscal 2023, so the pension route is technically open and practically rare. The income route is worth asking about rather than assuming. Note that the nearest VA-affiliated inpatient capacity is U.S. Naval Hospital Guam, which VA Pacific Islands uses under a Defense Department sharing agreement and which is a much shorter flight than Honolulu. Ask whether a referral can be met on Guam before accepting one to Hawaii, both for the travel cost and for the time away. If no route fits, ask the Office of Military Liaison and Veteran Affairs what local help exists. GAO recorded that the U.S. Virgin Islands veterans office reimburses health-related travel when VA will not; whether the Commonwealth office does anything similar is a question to put to it directly, and this catalog records no answer.