Retirement Update - Sleep Studies and thoughts on Life Insurance...

Are you planning to separate or retire from the military in the near future? If so, getting all of your medical documentation in order should be pretty high on your priority list – especially if you'd like to receive compensation for your service-connected issues. One of the most common issues that people get documented during their service is sleep apnea/insomnia. It's fairly commonplace because we often find ourselves working odd shifts or even switching back and forth between days, “mids,” and nights while performing our jobs. Between deployments and tours on the flightline and within operations centers, I've certainly had some weird schedules over a 20+ year career.

The timing of when to begin documenting your sleep issues may largely depend on where you are in your career. Are you separating after an enlistment or two, or are you beyond 20 years and narrowing down your retirement timeline? One of the biggest things to think about, at least in my opinion, is how it may affect securing life insurance for after military service. With certain ailments, securing said life insurance through non-military means may prove difficult, and leave members with the only option of utilizing VGLI, or Veterans' Group Life Insurance, after retirement. For those with no other option, it may be the only route...a big downside being the monthly cost once in our older years. Look at this breakdown by age brackets:

                                                         Veterans' Group Life Insurance

If you are pursuing life insurance outside of VGLI, it's important to secure a policy BEFORE beginning to compile your medical/VA documentation because once you are diagnosed with certain issues, you might become uninsurable.

In my own personal experience, I decided to get life insurance sorted on my last tour of active duty, that way it's locked in before I begin the VA process and before the possibility of any diagnoses that may prevent insurance policy applications being approved.

That's my life insurance knowledge nugget...let's get back on track with sleep studies and such...

Several months back, I got a referral for getting a sleep study knocked out. It was a take-home test and the military hospital here sent me home with a little kit that I'd use for one night of sleep before returning it to them. Once returned, they'd download the data and give it a brief lookover before supposedly sending it to Walter Reed to be reviewed. Long story short, they lost the data and it was never submitted...probably due to “personnel turnover,” or at least that's what I was told. Anyhow, after confirming that this was the case, and that I'd have to start over, I rang my primary doc and had the referral refreshed so that I could get things moving again. This was fairly easy, and I was referred to an out-in-town sleep clinic here in Okinawa called Nakamura Sleep Clinic.

If you're on Okinawa and thinking about getting a sleep study done, you need to first get a referral from your doc, and then print out all of the documentation that the referral management office sends to you via email. Your first visit to Nakamura will be a walk-in session. I was surprised at how efficient this place was. I found parking to be a bit tight, but they are about to be in the process of moving to a different building not too far from where it is right now. So, after a drive down to Urasoe and getting checked in, I spent about 2.5 hours there on this first visit. While there they checked vitals, had me fill out a questionnaire, watch an instructional video, and then I sat down with a doc to schedule the actual test...

IMPORTANT – Sleep studies on Okinawa are only conducted through Nakamura (at least as far as I can tell)...and the wait time in between first walk-in visit and overnight test is approximately 4 months. This is something to think about – especially if you are about to reach that 180 to 90 day window for your BDD submission.

Nakamura Sleep Clinic

That's about it for this one, gang...just wanted to post an update since it's been a little while. The retirement target is approximately 22 months out and coming fast. Where are you all at on the journey and what issues are you having, if any? Hope all is well, thanks for coming along, and I'll see ya on the next update. Cheers, gang!