Tricare Help: You can’t stop estranged wife from using Tricare - Getting out, military health issues - Navy Times

Tricare Help: You can’t stop estranged wife from using Tricare

Answering your questions on Tricare.

Q. I’m an Army private, and my wife and I are filing for divorce. How can I stop her from using Tricare? I’m getting past-due hospital bills for the amount that was not covered by Tricare because of a third-party provider. She won’t settle the past-due amounts.

Yours is chiefly a legal matter, and I’m not a lawyer. Only a lawyer can help you with legal matters.

To the best of my knowledge, your wife will be entitled to use Tricare for as long as she is legally married to you. Her eligibility will end on the day your divorce is final.

You can’t prevent her use of the program as long as she is legally eligible. She doesn’t need your permission to use Tricare.

That does not necessarily mean you are responsible for any part of her medical bills — but that is where you need an attorney’s help.

You and your attorney should contact the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System at 800-538-9552, for answers to all questions regarding your wife’s Tricare eligibility, including confirmation of what I have written above.

Q. My husband is on active duty and we have Tricare Prime. Our oldest daughter, who is 22, just divorced her Navy husband of less than a year, and she is not in college or working. She is not living at home at the moment but will move back in with us shortly. Is she eligible for coverage under my husband?

By law, most children of active-duty service members, retirees and deceased service members lose their Tricare eligibility automatically when they marry or reach age 21, whichever comes first.

If a child is enrolled as a full-time student at an accredited college, university or trade school, and if the uniformed service sponsor pays at least 50 percent of the child’s support, Tricare eligibility may be extended until marriage, graduation or upon reaching age 23, whichever comes first.

If a child becomes disabled and incapable of self-support prior to reaching age 21, eligibility may be extended indefinitely for as long as the disabling condition persists. If the disabling condition improves so the child becomes capable of self-support, and if the child is not Tricare-eligible otherwise, eligibility will be terminated and may not be restored even if the disabling condition recurs.

I suggest that you call DEERS at 800-538-9552 to discuss your daughter’s situation and to get official information and answers to all questions regarding her Tricare eligibility.

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Write to Tricare Help, Times News Service, 6883 Commercial Drive, Springfield, VA 22159; or e-mail us. In e-mail, include the word “Tricare” in the subject line and do not attach files. Get Tricare advice anytime on our blog.