Tricare Help: Reservist’s Tricare starts at 60 - Getting out, military health issues - Navy Times

Tricare Help: Reservist’s Tricare starts at 60

Answering your questions on Tricare.

Q. My husband’s health insurance at work is on a month-to-month renewal basis. He is a reservist and will turn 60 on Aug. 18. We need to know the effective date of his Tricare coverage. Will it be on Aug. 1, Sept. 1 or his birthday?

Your husband will become entitled to receive retired pay and other military benefits, including Tricare, on his 60th birthday, Aug. 18.

When he becomes eligible, so will you and any unmarried children under age 21 (23 if the child is a full-time college student). However, he must apply for Tricare on their behalf through his reserve personnel section.

If he retains his employer-sponsored health insurance, he must use that plan first. By law, Tricare is always last payer when a beneficiary has other health insurance. When the other plan has paid its maximum on a claim and issued an Explanation of Benefits, he may file a claim with Tricare for exactly the same charges. Tricare will pay most, or all, of what the employer’s plan did not.

For more information about enrolling the family in Tricare, call the DEERS Support Office at 800-538-9552. To learn more about using Tricare as second payer to the other plan, call your Regional Tricare Service Center. You can find the number by clicking here.

Q. I am going to be 65 soon. I have good health insurance through my job, and I intend to continue working for at least another 10 years, health permitting. I don’t need Medicare Part B, and Medicare says I don’t have to enroll in it and pay its premium as long as I continue to work. But Tricare says I must enroll in Part B whether or not I want it. That is so I can use Tricare as my “free” Medicare supplement. What are my alternatives?

You don’t have many alternatives. The federal law that governs Tricare says that unless you are an active-duty family member or a U.S. Family Health Plan member, you must be enrolled in Part B to keep Tricare when you get Medicare.

If you enroll in Part B, you will have Tricare for Life, which provides full Medicare coverage under parts A and B, plus full Tricare Standard coverage. You would pay nothing for most of your medical bills when both Medicare and Tricare cover all the services on your Medicare claim.

Only you can determine whether those two plans, combined, would provide coverage as good as what you have at present. If they would, you could then think about whether the Part B premium might be less than what you pay for your employer’s health insurance. In that case, you could cancel your employer’s plan and your only cost for health insurance would be your Medicare Part B premium.

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Write to Tricare Help, Times News Service, 6883 Commercial Drive, Springfield, VA 22159; or tricarehelp@militarytimes.com. In e-mail, include the word “Tricare” in the subject line and do not attach files. Get Tricare advice any time at our blog.