Health care and insurance for US military service members: Active duty, national guard, reserve, veterans, and retired

Providing front-line medical care in a combat theater can be one of the most rewarding experiences available to a medical provider at any level of training. There is a unity of purpose among the members of any military unit and the opportunity to utilize one’s training to support and provide aid to those brothers and sisters in arms tends to be a very gratifying endeavor. However, it can also be a difficult one with a unique set of challenges and hardships to overcome in order to provide the best care possible in the far forward setting. A few of these include balancing the sometimes competing interests of mission goals versus individual patient needs, limited supplies, professional isolation, and presence of increased threats. This chapter reviews the medical capabilities available to provide medical treatment to the forward-deployed service member (SM), as well as the means by which certain topically relevant issues are addressed by the forward provider (i.e. mild traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic brain injury).