Military Families

Brief Info Interventions

If you are raising a son or daughter with Autism Spectrum Disorder or developmental delays, and are an active duty United States military family participating in the TRICARE program, you may be eligible to receive intensive services from ABA Works that can dramatically impact how your child develops and finds connection and success in the world.

All of our interventions are based on Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). This cutting-edge approach to treatment has been successfully employed across all TRICARE regions during the life of the Autism Services Demonstration. That success has largely been measured by the most important metric, the satisfaction of participating families. These families have found that intensive ABA-based services:

  • Helps improve both the cognitive and functional level of their children, including the ability to communicate
  • Makes their children more prepared to succeed in school
  • Removes significant amounts of stress off the shoulders of parents
  • Teaches them how to better communicate with, teach, and support their children

The military benefit allows individuals to receive a significant amount of direct one-on-one interaction with a certified Registered Behavior Technician (RBT) who employs constant encouragement and continuous positive reinforcement as the principal means to replace undesirable behaviors with more appropriate ones. Each RBT is supported by a Program Supervisor (BCBA) who helps develop a treatment plan in conjunction with families, will supervise the RBT, and provide parent training, to ensure the success of the intervention.
The service is provided in the natural environment of your home or the community. When the learner is ready, the new behaviors are generalized in school and in the community.

TRICARE Comprehensive Autism Care Demonstration (ACD)

The Department of Defense has created TRICARE ACD, which combines coverage for ABA beneficiaries with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) under the three existing TRICARE programs:

  • Basic
  • Enhanced Access to Autism Services
  • ABA Pilot

The plan is for this program to run through December 2018. Important changes for TRICARE’s ACD includes:

  • One benefit: Every member receives the same ABA coverage
  • No caps: No $36,000 annual cap, no lifetime cap, and no maximum age

 

Specifics for active duty members, non-active duty members and retired Prime and Standard Plan recipients are as follows:

  • Active duty member: Will need to remain enrolled in ECHO as the ECHO cost share will cover most of the services
  • Non-active duty members: Will need to have a 10% cost share, which does not count towards the annual cap
  • Retired Prime and Standard plan recipients: Possibly there will be some additional out-of-pocket expenses for specific clinical assessments required one to two times per year, and for Parent training, may also have associated costs.

 

If you have any questions about this, please don’t hesitate to contact our insurance specialist.