The Department of Defense plans to decommission the online portal patients use to access old military health information and recommends patients download their digital medical records if they want to retain copies.
With the Defense Health Agency's transition to the MHS Genesis electronic health record complete, the Tricare Online Patient Portal will cease to be available as of April 1, according to the Pentagon. Medical providers will continue having access to the records and copies of old records will be maintained at military health facilities, but they won't be accessible online after that date. Officials are urging patients to maintain their own copies, according to several DoD news releases.
"All military hospitals and clinics have transitioned to MHS Genesis. We encourage you to take these important steps to save your personal health records before the [Tricare Online] Patient Portal decommissions," said Rear Adm. Tracy Farrill, a DHA electronic health records expert, in a statement.
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Military treatment facility patients who want to download their records must go to www.tricareonline.com and sign in with a DS Logon, Common Access Card or myPay login. They then must go to the Tricare Online page and click on the blue "Health Record" tab to view their data and follow directions for downloading.
They can download a PDF or XML continuity of care file that can be shared with other providers, health care systems or family.
Patients may not find complete copies of their medical records, depending on when they entered the military health system and when their military treatment facility began using a digital electronic health records platform, according to DHA spokeswoman Brenda Campbell.
Likewise, their legacy records will be only as new as when their military hospital or clinic switched over to MHS Genesis, a transition completed by the military health system between 2017 and 2024.
"Legacy electronic health records in [Tricare Online] only reflect periods of time when a beneficiary's military hospital or clinic was using the previous electronic health record platform. MHS Genesis health records only reflect periods of time when a beneficiary's military hospital or clinic was using MHS Genesis," Campbell said in a Jan. 27 email to Military.com.
The new MHS Genesis records do not contain information from previous electronic and paper health records, but providers still have access to those records to treat their patients, she added.
The Defense Department embarked on a multiyear contract with Cerner, now part of Oracle Health, in 2015 to provide an electronic health records system that would be completely compatible with the Department of Veterans Affairs system.
MHS Genesis is now used at 138 military hospitals and clinics and more than 3,600 DoD locations worldwide, according to the Defense Department.
The VA contracted with Cerner for a similar system in 2018, but the VA required that its system, now called the Federal Electronic Health Records System, include the capability to upload all legacy medical records. The VA has encountered multiple issues in adopting the new program and has installed it at only six facilities with the intention to restart the rollout next year.
With the decommissioning of the DoD portal, parents of those under the age of 12 can still view and download their children's legacy health records, but they may view only limited information such as test results for flu or COVID-19, allergies, vitals and immunization data for children ages 12 to 17 online.
Children of those ages can request copies of their own medical records at their military treatment facility, and parents can ask their adolescent children's providers or clinics for printed health records.
Parents may not download dependent records for children over the age of 18. Those beneficiaries -- active or former -- are eligible for a DS Logon, according to Campbell, and can access their own legacy health records.
Again, she added, copies of old records, either paper or electronic, can be requested at a nearby military hospital and clinic.
According to Tricare, the portal decommissioning should not affect a service member's ability to file a claim with the VA since providers still will have access to complete health records.
The DHA urged patients to download records and store them to ensure that they are available if needed.
"Your medical history is a valuable resource for managing your health, and saving your records now ensures you have access if you need it," Farrill said.
