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Beginning Tuesday, U.S. military veterans who find themselves in suicidal crisis will be eligible for free emergency medical care at any Department of Veterans Affairs facility or any private facility. Unlike for most other medical benefits, veterans do not have to be enrolled in the VA system to be eligible. More than 18 million veterans in the U.S. could be eligible. (Kube, 1/13)

Any U.S. military veteran in "acute suicidal crisis" will be able to access emergency health care at any facility for free starting next week, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced Friday. (Chen, 1/13)

Military members and their families have unique mental health needs. But a study shows that up to 35 percent of military recipients don’t have access to adequate psychiatric care despite government insurance that covers such services. Published in JAMA Network Open, the study looked at 39,487 U.S. Zip codes with at least one beneficiary of Tricare, the Defense Department health-care program that covers uniformed service members, retirees and their families. Researchers combined data from a variety of federal sources with community information. (Blakemore, 1/16)

The system that delivers health care for more than 9 million service members, retirees and their family members has a new director: Army Maj. Gen. Telita Crosland. She becomes the Defense Health Agency’s fourth director in its nearly 10 years of existence, and the first African American in that position. (Jowers, 1/11)

Tasked with having to know about hundreds of types of drugs and their interactions, equipment, and much more, pharmacists are vital in keeping warfighters healthy and ensuring that the U.S. military maintains a medically ready force. For deployed pharmacists, they face unique challenges, as they don’t work in a traditional brick and mortar setting. Rather, deployed pharmacists can be on a ship in the middle of the ocean, or in a makeshift building in the Middle East or Africa. The deployed pharmacy workforce may have to take care of warfighters in abnormal situations or locations. (Hammer, 1/12)

A recently enacted income supplement for low-ranking U.S. troops, put in place primarily to alleviate food insecurity in the ranks, will help less than 1 percent of the estimated scores of thousands of hungry U.S. military families, according to Pentagon figures. That statistic, which has not been previously reported, suggests Congress has a lot more work to do to ensure servicemembers who put their lives on the line for their country don’t also have to sacrifice food for themselves and their families, experts and some lawmakers said. (Donnelly, 1/13)