By Reg Jones
Medicare Part B
May 24th, 2013 | HEALTH INSURANCE Medicare
Q. I am a retired federal employee (64 years old) and still on federal health insurance. My wife is turning 65 this month. Does she have to sign up for Medicare Part B to avoid a future penalty, or can she wait until I am 65?
Resign now, risk suspension, or retire in September?
May 20th, 2013 | Deferred retirement DOWNSIZING FEHBP HEALTH INSURANCE LEAVE Re-enrollment Resignation RETIREMENT Sick leave
Q. I am 61 and will be 62 in September. I would like to retire at age 62. I have eight years of federal civilian service and bought back three years and eight months of military service. I know I cannot retire until I am 62. Due to a current civil legal action that I have, I would like to resign my position within the next 30 to 60 days. This would mean a deferred annuity with a retirement date of Sept. 30. My boss is looking to suspend me from duty without pay due to this situation pending the final results of my civil action. What will I be losing by resigning and not waiting until my retirement date, even if I am suspended from duty without pay? Should I just stay on suspension and submit for retirement for the end of September?
Medicare Part B, Tricare for Life and FEHB
May 20th, 2013 | Coverage after retirement FEHBP HEALTH INSURANCE Medicare Re-enrollment Tricare
Q. I will be turning 65 next month. I have Federal Employees Health Benefits coverage. I just enrolled for Medicare Part B. I am a retired reservist. I intend to enroll in Tricare for Life. DEERS requires that I disenroll from FEHB to enroll in Tricare for Life when I start Part B coverage My HR person has no idea whether I can drop my FEHB. Where can I get definitive information on this issue (disenrolling from FEHB at 65) to show HR?
Retiring in the middle of the month
May 17th, 2013 | Annual leave Creditable service: CSRS CSRS annuity computation FEHBP HEALTH INSURANCE RETIREMENT
Q. I am in CSRS. I want to retire Jan. 11, 2014, as I will be on a mission trip out of the country from Christmas until Jan. 9, 2014, and I would like to get paid for my unused annual leave for 2012. I understand that I will not receive a retirement check for that month since it is past the third day of the month. I have had Federal Employees Health Benefits coverage since Jan. 12, 2009. Does that qualify as five years of health coverage? What will happen to my health coverage for the rest of January as I won’t receive a check for that month?
Applying for Medicare Part B at a later date with no penalty?
May 17th, 2013 | FEHBP HEALTH INSURANCE Medicare RETIREMENT
Q. I’ve been retired from for a year and soon will be 65. I have to keep medical for my wife, so if I keep a family plan under Federal Employees Health Benefits, do I need to pay for Medicare Part B? If not, can I apply for it in the future without a penalty after my wife turns 65?
FEHB coverage for disabled adult child
May 16th, 2013 | Coverage after retirement Eligibility FEHBP HEALTH INSURANCE
Q. My disabled adult child is covered under my Federal Employees Health Benefits. How can I ensure that she will remain covered by FEHB after I pass on?
Medicare Part B
May 16th, 2013 | Coverage after retirement FEHBP HEALTH INSURANCE Medicare
Q. I am a retiree from Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., with health insurance. Turning 65. What happens about Medicare, and which insurance is primary? Does the health insurance turn to a supplement policy? Do you need Medicare A & B? I have only signed up for Medicare A.
Marriage after conversion from disability to retirement
May 15th, 2013 | annuity reduction Disability retirement HEALTH INSURANCE PAY RETIREMENT spouse benefits SURVIVOR BENEFITS
Q. I have been receiving disability under FERS (as well as Social Security) for 17 years. I am 61. I understand that, at age 62, my FERS disability benefits will be converted to a retirement annuity as though I had been working the entire time. I have never been married, but I intend to get married in the near future. Will I be able to elect survivor benefits for my spouse? What about coverage under my health insurance (Blue Cross/Blue Shield)? Does it matter whether I get married before my 62nd birthday or not?
Federal retirement and re-employment
May 14th, 2013 | Eligibility FEHBP Military service deposits Minimum retirement age part-time Re-employment Re-enrollment RETIREMENT
Q. 1. I left the Fed in November 2011 with 22 years of creditable service (military time buyback included) and, as I am under my MRA of 56, would not be eligible for my retirement benefits without penalty until age 62, correct? 2. Can I work part time (consultant) on an agency’s payroll without affecting my current status, or would that part time add to my benefit? 3. Also, if I came back to the Fed and did three more years of full-time work before age 62, would that reinstate my health benefits?
Tags: creditable service, Early retirement, federal re-employment, FEHB, military buyback, military service, minimum retirement age
FEHB and potential dependent
May 13th, 2013 | Eligibility FEHBP HEALTH INSURANCE
Q. I am retired CSRS. I’m marrying a woman who has a minor child. Can I have the child on my Federal Employees Health Benefits and/or as a survivor under any circumstance short of outright adoption?
Are insurance premiums pretax?
May 13th, 2013 | HEALTH INSURANCE PAY Premiums SURVIVOR BENEFITS taxes
Q. I have insurance payments taken out of my survivor annuity check each month. Are they pretax?
How Obamacare affects your FEHBP plan
May 9th, 2013 | FEHBP RETIREMENT
The Affordable Care Act — Obamacare — is already affecting the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. In this column, I’ll fill you in on some of the new requirements imposed on FEHBP.
Implemented in 2011 is the requirement that allows children up to age 26, regardless of their marital status, to remain on or be added to the self-and-family option of a parent’s plan. The child does not have to reside with that parent, be financially dependent on the parent, or be a student. Coverage doesn’t extend to a child’s spouse or children.
With one exception, when coverage ends under a parent’s plan, the child may continue that coverage on a self-only enrollment for up to 18 months under the Temporary Continuation of Coverage provision of the law. If the child does that, he or she must pay the entire premium, plus 2 percent to cover administrative costs. The exception: An unmarried child who was disabled before age 26 can continue to be covered under the parent’s self-and-family plan.
The law now requires plans to offer certain preventive care and screening. FEHBP plans have long covered many of these. And since 2011, the Office of Personnel Management has required that plans waive cost-sharing when its enrollees use in-network providers for this care.
The law also now requires plans to provide applicants and enrollees with a summary of benefits and coverage, plus a glossary of terms. The purpose is to give consumers straightforward information about their benefits. While the OPM had already gone a long way toward making it possible for federal employees and retirees to understand what their benefits are and to compare plans, the stricter requirements were imposed on FEHBP plans this year.
Historically, FEHBP plans haven’t imposed lifetime dollar limits on any health condition or kind of service. Beginning in 2013, the law requires this of all plans.
This year, OPM requires FEHBP plans to comply with the requirement that enrollees be allowed to participate in clinical trials. This opens up an area of medical care and scientific investigation where coverage by FEHBP plans had been sparse.
The law that established FEHBP more than 50 years ago prohibited plans from excluding coverage of pre-existing conditions on any enrollee, regardless of age. Beginning in 2014, the Affordable Care Act will bar such exclusions under all plans for any enrollee under age 19.
Since 2011, large group plans, including those in FEHBP, have been required to provide rebates if the ratio of the amount of revenue expended on clinical claims and health quality costs is less than 85 percent, after adjustment for taxes and regulatory fees. Any rebates will be deposited in the FEHBP program’s reserve and used to reduce the cost of that plan’s premiums the following year.
If you are enrolled in a flexible spending account (FSA) or health savings account (HSA), you may have already felt the effects of the Affordable Care Act’s restrictions. Since 2011, the law hasn’t allowed over-the-counter medicines to be covered unless they are prescribed by a physician. The only exception to that rule is insulin. However, other eligible items that aren’t medicine or drugs, such as bandages, won’t require a prescription.
FSAs and HSAs may be used to pay for the qualified expenses of any children who are under 26 and covered by your self-and-family plan, regardless of their financial dependence on you. But beginning this year, the law lowered the maximum annual contributions you can make to these accounts from $5,000 to $2,500. From now on, the contributions threshold will be indexed to inflation.
Adding spouse to insurance
May 8th, 2013 | Coverage after retirement HEALTH INSURANCE Postal Service spouse benefits
Q. I am a postal employee with self-only coverage. My wife works in private industry and has her own self coverage. Do I need to convert to family coverage and add my wife five years before I retire to keep her on my health insurance? Also, where can I find answers to questions like this?
Tags: FEHB, Postal Service, self-only coverage
Insurance after divorce
May 8th, 2013 | FEHBP HEALTH INSURANCE Tricare
Q. I was on Blue Cross/Blue Shield for 15 years through my husband’s employment with a city, but the city contracted with Coventry Health Care instead, about one year and two months ago. I have also been with Tricare (formerly CHAMPUS) through my husband’s retirement from the Navy in 1993. We are divorcing after 37 years of marriage, and I would like to switch to BC/BS in FEHB through my federal employment. If I retire before I have vested five years in BC/BS, will I not be able to take it into retirement? Someone told me that if I had been with TRICARE all these years, that somehow I was already considered vested in a federal health care insurance and could switch over to BC/BS and take the health insurance into my retirement. Is that true? Or do I need to actually work for five more years?
MRA retirement and pension, health insurance
May 8th, 2013 | annuity reduction Coverage after retirement Deferred retirement FEHBP HEALTH INSURANCE MRA + 10 Re-enrollment RETIREMENT
Q. I am 50, have 20 years under FERS and am thinking of retiring in six years when I reach my MRA of 56. If I do this, will I get health insurance coverage right away? Also, can I retire at 56 but delay retirement payments until 60 (or is it 62?) so I can avoid the 5 percent-per-year reduction in the payout? My main concern is keeping health insurance in place as soon as I retire at 56 — I can afford to delay the payout.
Tags: Deferred annuity, FEHB, FERS, minimum retirement age, pension
FEHB and Medicare
May 7th, 2013 | FEHBP HEALTH INSURANCE Medicare RETIREMENT
Q. I am a federal retiree and have the standard BC/BS coverage for my spouse and myself, plus Medicare Parts A and B. Our only out-of-pocket expenses with these plans are co-pays for prescriptions. Other federal retirees tell me I am over-insured and should drop Medicare Part B.
If I did this, would I still have the same coverage I have now, or would I then have out-of-pocket expenses?
FEHB enrollment and postponed retirement
May 6th, 2013 | Coverage after retirement FEHBP HEALTH INSURANCE Postponed retirement RETIREMENT
Q. I have a postponed retirement. When I start my annuity at age 62, must I enroll in Federal Employees Health Benefits at startup or may I enroll at a later date?
Health insurance
May 1st, 2013 | FEHBP HEALTH INSURANCE Re-employment
Q. Regarding carrying health insurance into retirement at age 60 when one has had a break in service: I began full time with the federal government at age 30 in 2005 but would like to change careers in my mid-40s and become a science and math teacher.
I read that I need to have the last five years covered under FEHB to carry health insurance into retirement. Does this apply if I have fewer than 30 years of service? Can I become a teacher at 44, then return to federal service at 55 and expect to have health insurance at 60?
Tags: FEHB, HEALTH INSURANCE
CSRS and Medicare
April 30th, 2013 | Medicare RETIREMENT
Q. I retired in 2009 under CSRS. I am close to 65, and the answer to one of the questions asked states that people in CSRS are not eligible for Medicare because they didn’t pay into Social Security.
I was in CSRS before the change to FERS and stayed with CSRS. I had Medicare deductions taken from my pay from 1983-84 till I retired in 2009.
Do the Medicare funds I paid since 1983 make me eligible for Medicare or just part of it?
So which is right? I need to know so I can do what needs to be done — enroll or not. I’m currently insured under federal BCBS.
Tags: CSRS, FERS, Medicare Part A, Medicare Part B, SOCIAL SECURITY
Retiring with five years but not 62
April 29th, 2013 | Coverage after retirement Deferred retirement FEHBP HEALTH INSURANCE LIFE INSURANCE Re-enrollment RETIREMENT Retirement date
Q. I will have been a federal employee for five years on Aug. 31. I will be 61 years old. I would like to leave federal service effective on that date. Will I be entitled to a pension? If so, how do I determine the amount. What is the financial impact if I wait to retire until August 2014 when I am 62?