Step 1Start with the VA
The VA is the front door, and that is not a brush-off
Community Care exists for when the VA cannot provide the care itself. So the route generally starts at your VA medical center or with your VA care team, who assess what you need and whether the VA can deliver it. If it can, that care is yours and it is good care.
Call us at any point in this process. We do this often enough to tell you what to ask for, and we will say so plainly if the VA is your better option.
Veterans Crisis Line: call 988 and press 1, or text 838255. Free, confidential, and staffed around the clock whether or not you are enrolled in VA health care.
Step 2Referral issued
A community care referral has to exist before you travel
If the VA agrees community care is appropriate, it issues a referral. This is the step people skip, and skipping it is how veterans end up with a bill they were told would not exist. Nothing here is authorised retroactively because a conversation felt encouraging.
Eligibility is a VA determination, not ours. We are not able to approve you and we will not pretend otherwise.
Step 3TriWest authorises
We hold the contract, so the paperwork lands with us
TriWest Healthcare Alliance is the VA’s third-party administrator for the Community Care Network in the western regions, California included. TriWest handles the authorisation and the claims. We hold that contract, which means the administrative back-and-forth is ours to chase rather than yours.
One clarification worth having early: TriWest is not an insurance company, and it is not TRICARE. Different programme, different population. Our admissions team will tell you exactly which one applies to you.
Authorisation trackingClaims submissionRecords transferVA coordination
Step 4Admission
Travel, intake, and a nurse who is already expecting you
Once authorised, admission works the way it does for anyone else here: transport arranged from LAX or Burbank, intake paperwork, medical detox under 24-hour nursing if you are still withdrawing, then residential treatment. Most detox stays run 7–10 days.
Step 5Veteran programming
The part that is actually different
You get the full programme, six hours a day, seven days a week, plus additional weekly sessions with a veteran therapist focused on military trauma, PTSD triggers and service-specific experience. Some of those therapists served as Green Berets.
PTSD and substance use are treated together rather than in sequence, through dual diagnosis treatment with trauma-focused therapy, somatic work and EMDR referral where indicated.
Military trauma focusCombat PTSDVeteran therapistsVeteran peersEMDR referral
Step 6Back to the VA
Discharge that hands you back cleanly
Discharge planning starts at intake and includes returning you to VA care or to a community provider near home, through the step-down care we coordinate. Records go back to your VA team so the next clinician is not starting from nothing, and alumni support stays open regardless.
