Q. I am a military physician with 18 years in service and four years of service at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, USUHS. Note these four years at medical school, though on active duty, do not apply for military retirement until you have 20 years in service, not counting those four years (this means a USUHS military physician must do 24 years to retire from the military).
My question is, I am considering leaving the service and joining NSPS as a physician. I will be 45 years old and have 22 years of military service (not retired) — 18 years plus four years at USUHS. USUHS is treated like Military Academy years.
1. Can I buy my USUHS time into NSPS?
2. Working in Germany as NSPS, my base salary would be $195,000, a locality pay of an additional $87,750 equating to $282,750. I will also receive a retention bonus of $71,000. Will my $282,750 all apply to retirement?
3. What is the earliest age I can retire with 30 years in service? What would the calculation be at that point? I will attain 30 years of federal service way before my MRA (minimum retirement age) of 56 years and six months.
A. While your USUHS service may be creditable for military purposes, it isn’t considered to be creditable service for annual leave accrual or retirement from federal civilian service. Therefore, you cannot make a deposit to get credit for those four years.
Only basic pay from which retirement deductions were taken will be used in determining your highest three years of average pay when you are ready to retire. Basic pay does not include allowances, differentials, overtime pay or bonuses.
