Tricare Help: Social Security eligibility won’t affect your Tricare for Life - Getting out, military health issues - Navy Times

Tricare Help: Social Security eligibility won’t affect your Tricare for Life

Answering your questions on Tricare.

Q. Social Security says if you were born from 1943 through 1955, you must be 66 to receive monthly Social Security payments. Tricare says we have to join Tricare for Life and have Medicare Parts A and B at age 65. How can you get around that one-year gap in coverage?

A. Congress changed only part of the Social Security law. Only the age required to receive Social Security payments was changed. The age for Medicare entitlement was not affected — that still begins at age 65.

People who apply in a timely manner will become entitled to Medicare on the first day of the month of their 65th birthday. If they were born on the first day of that month, their Medicare entitlement will begin on the first day of the previous month. That is true regardless of when they become entitled to Social Security payments.

If Tricare beneficiaries are properly enrolled in Medicare Part A and Part B, and if their Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System registration is properly updated, DEERS will report their eligibility for Tricare for Life effective on the same date their Medicare entitlement is effective.

Medicare will bill beneficiaries every 90 days for their Part B monthly premiums. When the Social Security beneficiaries become old enough to receive monthly benefit payments, the Part B premium will be deducted monthly as an allotment.

Q. I’m a retired reservist who will soon turn 60 and get Tricare. My present health insurance has been paying for an expensive medicine for my arthritis for several years. Will Tricare cover that pre-existing condition?

A. Tricare has no restrictions or limitations on its coverage, including pharmacy benefits, for a pre-existing condition that it would otherwise cover.

Q. I am 66 and have Tricare for Life. My husband died recently, and my military ID card is going to expire. Please tell me how to get it renewed.

A. Renewal of military ID cards is not under Tricare’s control or responsibility. It is a matter handled by your husband’s uniformed service. Call the DEERS support office, toll free, at 800-538-9552.

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