Q: I retired from the U.S. Postal Service in 2000 after being divorced in 1997. I gave my ex-wife 100 percent survivor benefits; she recently turned 55. I remarried in 2004 and sent the proper forms needed to add my current wife to my Federal Employees Health Benefits plan. I now have the American Postal Workers Union (472) plan, and I assumed that if I died, my present wife would be able to keep the plan. After talking with the Office of Personnel Management, I was told that I need to have my present wife named as survivor beneficiary for…
Browsing: Coverage after retirement
Q: There was an answer to a question that I would like clarification on. The writer, who was retired, said he and his wife were under his family health plan, but now they don’t need to cover their son, and he wants to switch to self-only coverage for both he and his wife (they are both retired federal employees). How is this possible? When you retire, you have to pick the self or family option, and your spouse also has to pick the self or family option. I assume the wife dropped her coverage in this case because you can’t…
Q: I am a 69-year-old federal retiree covered by a Blue Cross/Blue Shield Standard Option 105 health plan as well as Medicare Part A. I recently spoke with Blue Cross about reimbursement levels for doctor care when I received a bill from my internist for $400 and Blue Cross paid $100. According to Blue Cross, I was responsible for the remaining $300 because Congress had passed rules (they may have meant that the Office of Personnel Management generated a rule, I am not sure) that limited the amount they could reimburse Medicare patients for a given procedure. When I checked…
Q: I have more than 30 years of employment with the federal government and plan to retire under the Civil Service Retirement System in about three years, at which point I will elect survivor benefits. For the past five years, I’ve elected a family Federal Employees Health Benefits plan to include my wife. My wife has more than three years of employment with the federal government and plans to retire under the Federal Employees Retirement System in about four years. We are both thinking about switching from family coverage to self-only coverage. If my wife retires with self-only coverage after…
Q: I intend to retire Dec. 31 from the Department of Health and Human Services. I have had a family health insurance plan (Blue Cross/Blue Shield) for 20-plus years. My wife is a federal government employee. We want to transfer coverage from my agency to her agency (Labor Department) during the open season. First, how do we make sure that the transfer of payment for coverage and the policy will assure that the five-year required continuous coverage is maintained? Second, if we are able to transfer and maintain continuous coverage, will my wife’s plan be my primary insurance after retirement,…
Q: I am currently under workers’ comp from the Postal Service. My health insurance is through workers’ comp. My husband is a retired Postal Service employee with MVP family insurance. I would like to disability retire but I need to know that I can be added to my husband’s insurance effective immediately. I have been advised to cancel my workers’ comp health insurance first, then I can be picked up on his. This is very risky. Please advise. A: If your husband is enrolled in the self and family option of his Federal Employees Health Benefits plan, you are already…
Q: My husband and I are both federal law enforcement officers. The family health plan is under my husband. We both plan to retire this year. He wants me to waive my survivor annuity and he says I will still be covered under our federal Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan because I was covered for the last five years of my employment under the Federal Employees Health Benefits family plan that he carried. He wants a bigger retirement check. My question is, if I sign the survivor annuity waiver and he dies before me, am I still automatically covered under our…
Q: I have been opting out of health care coverage because I am covered by my wife’s plan, but I plan to retire under the Federal Employees Retirement System in 2016 and want to take advantage of the post-retirement health care benefits. I will enroll during the upcoming open season, but I would like to know whether I need to enroll in self and family coverage in order to have coverage for my family after I retire, or if I can enroll in self coverage now and add family members after I retire. A: You can switch from self-only coverage to…
Q: I am a retired postal annuitant on Medicare. I heard that letters were sent out in the spring inviting insurers to offer a health care supplement for people such as me, so that I don’t have to pay for a full-blown plan when I also have Medicare Parts A and B. I cannot find any insurers offering such a plan for 2011. Are there any plans being offered? Who offers them? Are there any fee-for-service insurers? A: I don’t know if OPM had any takers. We won’t know that until it makes its Federal Employees Health Benefits open season…
Q: My wife and I are federal retirees and annuitants. We continue to enroll in the CareFirst Blue Cross/Blue Shield standard option. We do not have Medicare Part B. The Blue Cross 2010 Plan Booklet and several explanation of benefits from Blue Cross explain that by law, physicians who do not accept Medicare can only charge us up to 115 percent of what Medicare allows. The law applies to federal retirees and annuitants without Medicare Part B. Please confirm that what I summarized above is correct. A: What you read on Page 23 of your plan brochure is correct.