The Defense Department and Department of Veterans Affairs recently expanded fertility treatment benefits to more people, but the VA's benefit stops short of covering surrogates, which the DoD covers for certain active-duty troops under Tricare.
The uneven coverage comes after both departments announced the expansions due to a lawsuit claiming their fertility benefits discriminated against unmarried service members and veterans, as well as same-sex couples.
The DoD said in March it will no longer limit in vitro fertilization, or IVF, treatments to married service members and will allow donor eggs and sperm. The VA then announced it would follow suit. But its revised rule for determining eligibility for IVF, released on April 4, says it won't cover something Tricare will: namely, surrogates who can carry and deliver a baby for parents.
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Both the DoD and VA policies apply to individuals whose service-connected injury, illness or disability leads to infertility. Conditions that may lead to infertility “include but are not limited to hydrocele, varicocele, prostate cancer, diabetes, benign prostate hypertrophy, erectile dysfunction, hysterectomy, and female sexual arousal disorder,” VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said in a statement to Military.com.
IVF providers fertilize eggs with sperm in a lab then place resulting embryos into…
