IG Report: Serious Delays in Overseas Military Healthcare Access
Updated on
Joe Wallace
There are approximately 120,000 military families at overseas military bases, with some 170,000 servicemembers assigned to overseas duty. The quality of their healthcare is as mission-essential as that of stateside troops and families, but according to an Inspector General report, that overseas care is lacking.
The Department of Defense Inspector General released a report in December 2025. That report states the Defense Health Agency (DHA) fails to effectively manage access to primary care standards at military medical treatment facilities (MTFs) outside the continental United States (OCONUS).
The report confirms that troops and families overseas face serious delays for routine and urgent appointments. The IG audit reviewed a sample of 15 OCONUS MTFs and found widespread non-compliance with TRICARE access standards. The IG used DHA Near Real Time dashboard data to calculate the average length of patient delays and confirmed the following critical lapses during the review.
IG Report Findings
Wait time for urgent appointments ranged from 1.2 days to 21.1 days. The required TRICARE standard mandates an appointment within 24 hours. Routine care delays ranged from 7.2 days to 36.8 days. The standard requires an appointment within 7 calendar days.
The audit found that insufficient staffing and poor administrative practices drive the consistent failure to meet standards. Specifically, the IG identified three major operational failures across the DHA-managed system:
Inconsistent Guidance
All 15 MTFs reviewed operated using different guidance, which the IG report notes stemmed from the DHA’s failure to issue finalized guidance defining standardized requirements.
None of the sampled facilities possessed sufficient staff to meet the established access-to-care standards. The DHA did not effectively track or manage provider attrition, failing its mission to deliver timely healthcare.
Data Reliability Issues
MTF personnel dedicated significant time to manually researching and resolving workarounds for inaccurate or unreliable data within the DHA access-to-care dashboards.
Personnel Burnout
The IG report says the burden of managing patient demand and reconciling faulty data caused MTF personnel to experience burnout and decreased morale.
IG Recommendations
As part of this report, the DoD IG issued 11 formal recommendations to the DHA Director, including a requirement for a comprehensive workload analysis.
The IG recommends the DoD take steps to “improve access to care management, including to finalize and implement guidance and to analyze and remediate data quality issues. Regarding staffing, we recommend that the DHA Director track data on why personnel are leaving MTFs, conduct a comprehensive review of authorized staffing at OCONUS MTFs, and monitor support staff availability.”
Editor-in-Chief Joe Wallace is a 13-year veteran of the United States Air Force and a former reporter/editor for Air Force Television News and the Pentagon Channel. His freelance work includes contract work for Motorola, VALoans.com, and Credit Karma. He is co-founder of Dim Art House in Springfield, Illinois, and spends his non-writing time as an abstract painter, independent publisher, and occasional filmmaker.
