TriWest Healthcare Alliance opens in Rancho Bernardo to help veterans

Veterans throughout San Diego have a new local helper in getting the medical care they need, one that opened in Rancho Bernardo on Tuesday.

Retired Marine Corps Col. Jay Vargas, who received the Medal of Honor due to his heroic actions in Vietnam, and San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer joined scores of new TriWest Healthcare Alliance employees to celebrate the company’s first day of operations at 16620 W. Bernardo Drive in Rancho Bernardo Business Park.

TriWest is a Phoenix-based company owned by not-for-profit health plans and two university systems. Since 1996, it has focused on providing military personnel, veterans and family members access to high-quality health care. Due to a partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs, its Veterans Affairs Patient-Centered Community Care program and the Veterans Choice Card benefit, TriWest employees help veterans navigate the system to get their medical and behavioral health-related questions answered and obtain care through TriWest’s consolidated civilian provider network

Julie Townsends, TriWest’s senior vice president of strategic planning and business development, said there are different ways veterans can be eligible to utilize TriWest’s services. They include being more than 40 miles from a VA facility, needing care the VA does not provide or the VA not being able to provide an appointment within 30 days.

Townsends said TriWest has a strong, solid network of 8,500 doctors, nurses, behavioral health counselors and other health care providers in the San Diego area. This is crucial since the region has the third largest veteran population of around 234,000 veterans and is the top relocation choice of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. She said the company — that also opened an office in Kansas City on Tuesday and plans to open three more offices this year — is well on its way to handling 100,000 care requests by year’s end.

The Rancho Bernardo office opened with 170 employees and has dozens more in training so it can have 240 employees helping veterans by this fall. She said their key function would be to process health care authorizations approved by the VA.

Vargas reminded TriWest employees that despite the demands of their jobs, they must always put veterans first and remain patient with those they assist.

“San Diego is the heartbeat of the whole nation as far as I am concerned for the veterans community,” Vargas said, adding, “In San Diego we stay on top of problems and have the best VA hospital in the whole nation.”

After his military retirement, Vargas was Secretary of the California Department of Veterans Affairs (1993-98) and in 2001 became a Regional Veterans Liaison for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“The work you will be doing is incredibly important,” Faulconer said, adding, “We cherish our military and veterans community here in San Diego — home to the largest concentration of military in the world.”

“The work won’t always be easy … but each of you play a vital role in getting veterans the care they earned,” Townsends said.

For more about TriWest Healthcare Alliance, its services and access eligibility, go to TriWest.com or call toll free 1-866-606-8198.