FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AFPN) -- Nearly 20,000 Tricare beneficiaries are saving money on their prescriptions after making the switch to mail order through the new member choice center. After only two months of operation, beneficiaries saved approximately $600,000 on prescriptions by switching from retail to the Tricare Mail Order Pharmacy.

In all, individual beneficiary's savings through TMOP could range from $24 a year for each regular formulary generic drug to as much as $176 a year for each non-formulary brand-name drug. The savings increase with each additional prescription.

"Beneficiaries are saving time in addition to money," said Army Maj. Gen. Elder Granger, deputy director, Tricare management activity. "TMOP offers the convenience of ordering and receiving prescriptions without leaving home."

The Department of Defense is saving money too, projecting a savings of approximately $6.9 million on the 39,500 prescriptions converted so far from retail to TMOP. DoD could save up to $24 million a year with just a 1 percent shift of prescriptions from retail to mail order.

Beneficiaries that do not have other health insurance and are currently using a retail pharmacy can go now go online to www.express-scripts.com/Tricare to complete the registration, without downloading or mailing forms, and request that their prescription be converted to mail order from retail.

A toll free number is also an option in the United States. A patient care advocate at the MCC at (877) 363-1433 can initiate the process to obtain a new prescription from the beneficiary's provider to be filled by the TMOP.

TMOP also notifies beneficiaries by letter when one of their medications is switching to the third tier, which has the most expensive co-pay. This gives beneficiaries time to ask their doctor to switch them to the formulary drug at a lower co-pay before they need a refill.

For more information about the new member choice center and filling prescriptions through the TMOP program, visit the prescription area on the "My Benefit" link of www.tricare.mil.