Q. I am retired military and have the Tricare plan. I’m a FERS employee for six years. I have never enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits program. I am 62 years old and eligible for immediate retirement. Because I have been enrolled in Tricare and not FEHB, will I be eligible to enroll in FEHB when I retire because I was enrolled in a federal health plan? Or must I be enrolled for five years prior to my immediate retirement? When I first became a FERS employee, I thought I saw something about if you are in Tricare, you would be eligible for FEHB even if you were not enrolled upon your immediate retirement.
A. What you heard wasn’t true. To be covered by the FEHB program, you would have to be enrolled in it when you retire and the combination of Tricare and FEHB would have to equal five years.
