Retiring from the AF and moving on to Delta in the near future. My family is currently Tricare Standard, and I was planning to go Tricare Standard myself, with supplemental insurance through Delta. Someone from the Retiree Affairs office on my base was telling me I should sign up for Tricare for Life. Granted, I've had my head in the sand about some of this stuff, but I really don't know what Tricare for Life is or what it would do for me and my family.

Anyone else who has followed this path have any recommendations?

Tricare For Life is the Medicare Supplement part of Tricare. You can only get Tricare For Life when you reach age 65 and enroll in Medicare Part B.

If you're reasonably happy with Tricare, no reason to sign up for anything else. Personally, I skipped the supplement--I found it way too expensive for what it gives you. You'll have to figure out your family's needs vs which plan offers what, but that was how it went for me.

Get the company dental & vision, unless you have a better deal (say, if your wife has a better plan).

Unless you are a lot older than the typical retiree, you don't need Tricare for life. Very sad someone told you that.

I echo Jughead, I ran the numbers, unless we are hitting the max deductible (or close to it) financially it's better to skip the supplement. I brain dumped the numbers so I can't remember the break even point, but my family had been on standard for years and never hit the max deductible of 1000, so the supplement didnt make sense.

And btw, just started using standard myself, what the heck have I been missing. I got an MRI the next day....or about six weeks quicker than I did on active duty. I think you'll enjoy it.

Thanks all. It was a 95 year old retiree telling me about it. He might be a little out of touch with what the typical 42-ish year old retiree would need, or else I misunderstood him, which is also possible. My wife takes so many meds that the supplement usually pays for itself in the first three months. Sounds like my plan to go with Tricare Standard for the whole family makes sense. I had been using the MOAA supplement, but was told the Delta supplement might be better?

I thought Standard would be cheaper...it turned out Prime was, although in my case, I have a special-needs family member that lowers the premium.

I got the best of both worlds: Prime, so no deductible, and almost no co-pay, and yet, they let us go with a local doctor because the closest military facility is over capacity with retirees.

Yet, when I need the ER one night, I could still go to the base!

I too had no idea what to go with in my last year on duty...check carefully. I'm extremely happy with Prime.

On the other hand, United's dental and vision plans were far superior in coverage, premium, and co-pay.

Ditto the above. Run the numbers for your residence location and family makeup. My family and I have been on Standard over 15 years. Out of pocket has always been lower than company premiums would be. Haven't used the supplements at all as they would not save me anything. Most meds are free or have extremely low copays through the ExpressScripts mail order system. Prime wasn't an option for us due to location. Deductibles are $150/person $300/family and $3000 catastrophic cap. Still use company Dental. Good luck.

EX,

I got company dental and vision as tricare vision didn't seem so great, do you use tricare for vision too?

How do you use express scripts? Been on my to do list for a while, just haven't done it. Appreciate any guidance.

I don't remember the details except I received a mailing from Tricare and I went to this site and signed up. https://www.express-scripts.com

Very easy and they were/are early with every refill. They will give you a heads up when you are running out of refills and my new doctor was able to upload my new script electronically.

TriCare Prime works best for my situation.
Vision and Dental through my work insurance. Delta Dental was far too expensive in my opinion.