New Military Healthcare Pilot Program Tests Midwifery Services for TRICARE Families Over Five Years

This new legislation, dubbed the MIDWIVES for Service Members Act of 2025, sets up a significant five-year pilot program within TRICARE—the health system for military families and retirees. The goal is straightforward: to test the waters on making services provided by certified midwives available to beneficiaries. The Secretary of Defense has a year to get this program running, and if it proves successful after five years, they have the power to make it a permanent fixture.

Expanding the Maternity Care Menu

For military families, especially those frequently moving or stationed in areas with limited healthcare options, this bill is about choice. Currently, TRICARE often limits maternity care options. This pilot program aims to change that by including “covered midwives,” which the bill defines very strictly. To qualify, a midwife must be either a certified professional midwife or a certified midwife who meets the high international education standards set by the International Confederation of Midwives and holds the required state license to practice where they are working. This ensures that any new providers brought into the system meet rigorous professional standards, which is key for quality control.

The Data Deep Dive: Proving the Value

This isn't just a simple trial run; it’s a massive data collection project. The bill mandates that the Secretary of Defense send annual reports to Congress detailing several critical factors that will determine whether this program sticks around. They have to track the total cost and the cost per user, which is the kind of detail that matters to taxpayers and budget hawks. More importantly, they have to track how this care affects actual health outcomes for mothers and babies. This means looking closely at metrics like rates of C-sections, preterm births, and low birth weight—all crucial indicators of quality maternity care.

They also need to assess patient satisfaction and access, including how long beneficiaries have to wait for an appointment and how far they have to travel. Essentially, TRICARE is being asked to prove, with hard data, that incorporating midwives improves quality, access, or both, without breaking the bank. For a military spouse considering a birth center or home birth option, this means the quality of care they receive during this pilot could directly influence whether that option becomes permanently available to all TRICARE families.

The Future is Discretionary

While the pilot is mandatory, making it permanent is not. After the five years are up, the Secretary of Defense gets to assess the results and decide if the program was a “success.” If they determine it was, they can establish regulations to keep offering these services. This element of administrative discretion is worth noting. While the bill requires extensive data collection, the final call on what constitutes “success” and whether to make the program permanent rests entirely with the Secretary. This is a common feature in pilot programs: they provide the data, but the ultimate decision to scale up remains a policy call. For busy military families, this bill represents a significant step toward expanding maternity care options, but its long-term viability hinges on five years of rigorous data and one final administrative decision.