If you are a person who cares and worries a lot about what will happen to your family when you retire and if you fall sick or get hurt. If yes then you must begin making plans now for your retirement to help you and your loved ones in times of needs. Thankfully the FEHB program has benefits that will suit a Federal Employee even when he/she retires.

If you have already chosen a plan during your tenure then you can continue with the same health benefit even after you retire provided you meet certain criteria by the federal government, such as retiring with an immediate annuity and having been enrolled with the health benefit for minimum five years and more during your tenure with a federal agency. Just in case it is less than five years then exceptions are made after your retirement health benefit is reviewed by your immediate employing officer.

You can call the retirement information office about your coverage and services.

After retiring from one federal agency and joining another federal agency and if they allow the FEHB program you can continue after your employing officer changes back your health benefit from the retirement system to the employed system.

Once you join back as a fulltime employee your premiums will be deducted from your pay package on a pre-tax basis. For a better understanding on how it works for re-employment after retirement contact or visit opm.gov.

Your spouse and your children will also be covered in your health benefit plan but please be aware that children above the ages of 26 will not be covered unless they are mentally or physically ill and have been for couple of years then they would be covered in your plan. If you have foster children then the same applies for them as well and must live with you at all time at not with their biological parents. Also, you should be the only source of income to the child.

As a Federal Employee you are eligible for the health benefit covered under the FEHB program except if your employment is not recognized by the federal law or regulation which is a very rare occurrence.

The plans available for Federal Employees are the same for all (new and retired employees) such as the FFS (fee for service), FFS with PPO (Fee for Service with Preferred Provider Organization), HMO (Health Maintenance Organization), HDHP (High Deductible Health Plan), HSA (Health Saving Account), CDHP (Consumer Driven Health Plan), and HRA (Health Reimbursement Arrangement).

To get detail information on these plans you can look for type of plans on the opm.gov website. The coverage and service you receive will solely depend on the plan you take; however, all plans irrelevant of the premiums and duration they all cover some common services such as; care before, during and after surgery, taking care of drug abuse individuals, care for mental problems, general hospital care, in-patient and out-patient care, care during pregnancy for female Federal Employees, and any prescribed drugs taken during illness or injury is covered by the health benefit.

For most employees the government shares the cost of the premium. Refer to the handbook by FEHB that gives the calculations of what is the government’s share towards a Federal Employee’s health benefit premium.

Just remember to make sure you enroll for the benefit when you are eligible for it or else you got to wait for the annual open season period to enroll, which usually begins November and goes on until mid- December.

You can enroll for your benefit using a common form for all Federal Employees known as the SF-2809 form. The other way of enrolling for a health benefit is through a self-service method such as MyPay, EBIS (Employee Benefit Information System) etc.

You can make changes to the plan like adding or removing a family member or decreasing or increasing the health coverage once a year during the federal health benefit open season takes place, which is mid-November to mid-December.

If you are married and have children they all will be covered under your health benefit plan unless you are divorced and your children are older than 26 years who are capable of taking care of themselves.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has health benefits for new employees, existing employees, and retired employees under the FEHB program. This article covers all the details pertaining to the health insurance for new employees.
When a new employee joins a federal agency he/she must enroll into a health benefit plan within 60 days of joining or else they must wait to do it yearly during mid-November to mid-December during the open season for federal benefits.
Once a new employee chooses his health benefit plan accordingly he will receive coverage and services associated with the plan of his choice. Nevertheless, all plans have a common coverage and benefit such as hospital care, substance (drugs) abuse care, mental health care, in and out patient care, prescribed medicine coverage, obstetric care, and surgical care.
A new employee does not have to wait or follow any kind of limitations even if he changes plans during his tenure with the federal agency.
If a new employee wishes to make any changes to his existing plan like changing the coverage amount or adding a new family member into the health benefit he must do so at the open season period, which is mid-November to mid-December. The new change will take effect in January the following year as that’s the time a full pay period begins. If you need any help on this you can contact your human resource officer (HRO) or speak to your supervisor who will direct you and give you answers.
The family of the new employee is covered in all his/her health benefits except children who are older than 26 years old. However, if a child is above 26 years but is incapable of taking care of him or herself due to a mental or physical illness that existed much before the child turned 26 then he/she shall also be covered in the health benefit.
There are various options of enrolling for the FEHB program. You can fill out a form called SF-2809, MyPay, Employee Express, EBIS (Employee Benefits Information System, or through the employee personal page.

Health benefits can’t be handed out to employees without knowing if it’s really going to benefit them in the long run or not; hence custom made plans are designed to suit majority of the employee needs.

Let’s take a look at the plans associated with the health benefits offered to federal employees:

Æ       CDHP (Consumer Driven Health Plans)

A CDHP gives you the liberty of controlling the cost of health similar to how you control other things you wish to buy. By this I mean you can either choose a health benefit that is already custom made for you or you can choose a benefit and custom make it for yourself, so that way you do not pay an extra amount in premium to health insurers as they are doing the research work of finding out the health benefit that suits you the best.

If you opt for the CDHP plan you can enroll in a health wellness program to stay healthy and reduce the cost spent in healthcare. CDHP is a good health solution as research has proved that individuals who are given the responsibility of managing their own health benefits tend to spend less money on healthcare by choosing to stay healthy.

Æ       FFS (Fee For Service)

This is a regular method of paying for healthcare, which means when you get admitted into a hospital either your health insurance company pays the hospital directly or you pay and then get reimbursed later. This option might fall a bit expensive as you have to do all the running about for claims and paperwork.

Æ       FFS with PPO (Fee For Service with Preferred Provider Organization)

People who opt for this plan have a larger network of hospitals and physicians. If required a person can visit a hospital or a physician out of the network too but the cost would be more. PPOs have more options for treatments which make them appealing but the bad thing about this option is not all services within a hospital will be covered under the PPO benefit. For example if you take a lab or radiology tests from an independent physician within a hospital then chances are high that these services might not be covered in the PPO plan. However, PPO is the most used plan in the market.

Æ       HMO (Health Maintenance Organization)

HMO is an organization that ties up with an insurance company to provide health benefits to the insured. HMO usually provides health benefits for preventative health care, which means if you have a mild illness and visit a physician under the HMO plan he/she will take care of the illness upfront that will not cause serious illnesses in the future.

The HMO plan provides health care only through its network of hospitals and physicians. If you wish to see another physician or a specialist you must first take authorization from your primary care physician (PCP) to see another doctor and you must pay from your own pocket for any kind of treatment from a doctor out of the HMO network. The good thing about the HMO option is you pay less on premiums and you would have less or no paperwork at all.

Æ       POS (Point Of Service)

POS plans are more flexible and a person with a POS plan can visit a hospital or a physician out of the HMO network but the cost of the plan will be more compared to the HMO plan. Everything else remains the same as the HMO plan.

Æ       HDHP (High Deductibles Health Plan)

A HDHP plan helps people pay less for their healthcare but still get covered for catastrophic medical situations.  HDHPs are usually used combinedly with HSAs (Health Saving Account). For more information visit the opm.gov website.

The federalemployeehealthbenefits is a program that looks after the benefits of the people who are employed by the federal government. It is a program created by the U.S.OPM (Office of Personnel Management), which is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government. The role of OPM is to hire, retain, and recognize good hands that are considered amongst the best in the world to serve the American people.

Like all organizations U.S.OPM had also realized that health benefits are the essential part for employees to join an employer who provides it. Hence the FEHB program was developed along with various plan options so an employee can choose from a wide list when opting for a health benefit.

Some examples of the plans in the FEHB program are; HMO (Health Maintenance Organization), FFS (Fee for Service), POS (Point of Service), HDHP (High Deductible Health Plans), CDHP (Consumer Driven Health Plans), and FFS with PPO (Fee for Service with Preferred Provider Organization).

My next article will talk about the full meaning of these plans and how it can help you decide which plan suits you the best.

The Federal Employee health benefit can provide for you and your family when a health situation arises. Not only do current employees and their families enjoy these health benefits but new prospective employees, retirees and also their families enjoy the fruits of this benefit.

Health benefits given to employees is a method used by employers to retain their best employees as attrition is always present in any organization even if it’s a state or federal government office.

Employee benefits can never be cut short on as that is the attracting factor for prospective employees to join an organization. The most qualified and experienced employees leave their existing companies and join a new company only on the basis of earning better salaries and getting better benefits, so health benefits are also the key to draw employees that are best amongst the best.