Moving to Costa Rica or Nicaragua and wondering what happens to your VA benefits? The short version: the benefits that matter follow you — and the part that usually turns into a monthly headache, paying for your medications and waiting on the VA, doesn’t have to be your problem at all. Here’s how it works.

Your disability compensation keeps coming

If you receive monthly VA disability compensation for a service-connected condition, that payment continues no matter where in the world you live. Moving abroad does not reduce it or cancel it — it keeps coming just as it does now.

Your health care runs through the Foreign Medical Program

There are no VA hospitals overseas. Instead, the VA Foreign Medical Program (FMP) covers care and FDA-approved medication for your service-connected conditions in a foreign country. It’s a real benefit you earned — but the way most veterans are told to use it is the part that wears them down.

The default way — and why veterans get tired of it

On your own, FMP is a reimbursement program. Every month you pay for your medication out of your own pocket, fill out a claim (VA Form 10-7959f-2), mail it in, and wait — sometimes weeks, sometimes months — for the VA to pay you back. Miss a receipt or a signature and it gets sent back to the start. You’re fronting money and doing paperwork, every single month, for medication you already earned.

The way we do it — you pay nothing, and you wait for nothing

This is what makes us different. For the veterans we serve in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, you don’t pay out of pocket at all for your FMP-covered medications — not a deposit, not a co-pay, nothing. You don’t file claims. You don’t wait on a reimbursement check, because you never paid in the first place. We front the cost and we handle everything with the VA on our end. The delays and paperwork that frustrate other veterans simply never reach you — because you’re not the one waiting on the VA. We are.

Your side is simple: get your medication, delivered to you. That’s the whole job.

What FMP covers — and what it doesn’t

We’ll always be straight with you about this. FMP covers your service-connected conditions and conditions the VA links to them — not routine care unrelated to your service. If a medication isn’t covered, we’ll tell you before you spend anything. We would rather give you an honest answer than a surprise.

A short checklist before you move

• Register with FMP (VA Form 10-7959f-1) — the one piece of paperwork worth doing, and we’ll help you with it, free.
• Download your FMP benefits letter from VA.gov so you know what’s covered.
• Talk to us before you arrive, so your medication is set up and waiting — no gap, and nothing out of your pocket. See how it works for veterans in Nicaragua →

Veterans Pharmacy Costa Rica is a service of Farmacia Adela S.A., a licensed Costa Rican pharmacy. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. FMP is administered solely by the VA — confirm your personal coverage with the VA.