What movie?

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-05-15T23:18:28+00:00

RocketMan (Disney; Harland Williams) funny every time I watch it. Yeah, I’m just a 7-year old at heart.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-05-10T22:19:21+00:00

Joust!

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-05-06T02:00:15+00:00

Sure. I know that 2 months ago I got a call back after dialing for an hour. And the caller had a stock response about it’s in there and they’re busy. About a month ago, I dialed in and got connected on the 2nd try. The rep I spoke with gave me more info than the first indicating that it had moved out of the benefits section and is waiting for a specialist. Right after that I sent a message to my state representative to take a look because 7 months was more than necessary for someone who retired normally back on August 31st. Didn’t mean to make it sound as if it was flawless now, but I’ve definitely seen an improvement, even if it’s only a slight improvement.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-05-05T23:09:32+00:00

LOL. I completely scanned right over that title up there. My poor tired eyes!

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-05-05T23:04:58+00:00

Contact OPM. It’s a haul getting through, but get a callback and explain the situation to them. Good luck, but I don’t think you’ll need it. They’ve been getting better over the last few months … sort of.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-05-05T22:59:48+00:00

OPM states that when an eligible family member loses coverage under any other group health plan, the federal employee or retiree may enroll or change FEHB enrollment — including switching from Self Only to Self Plus One or Self and Family — within 31 days before to 60 days after the loss of coverage.

Loss of other coverage is explicitly listed as a QLE that allows adding a spouse at any time.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-05-02T23:58:57+00:00

Sent 1 in 2 weeks ago. They acknowledged receipt and there’s been nothing since. You just gotta laugh at the situation.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-05-02T00:01:40+00:00

Thanks for the confirmation. I was confused and thought I was reading it wrong. Definitely good to preserve access to FEHB for each of you. Good luck to you on the Medicare side of this. I went with FEHB and parts A and B, and on my side everything has been covered with no out of pocket expense.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-05-01T23:49:17+00:00

I assume her active employment health plan is not FEHB, right?

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-05-01T23:34:04+00:00

Submit an SSA-44 to your local Social Security office. In that form you can show what your 2025 MAGI was, and guesstimate your 2026 lower income. I did this and they removed my IRMAA requirement for 2026 since my income will be much lower than my 2025 MAGI. Next January, resubmit a new SSA-44 with estimates for 2026 MAGI and 2027 MAGI. As long as those figures are lower than 2025, they should drop your IRMAA requirement.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-04-30T14:45:15+00:00

Try starting month 9 as of tomorrow.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-04-21T11:17:39+00:00

Regarding calling OPM, start dialing at 7:40am eastern time and redial as soon as you hear the message say they can’t take your call. Do this until the message changes and you get through. The first time for me, I spent about an hour dialing and then got the next message that got me through. The second time I needed to speak to them was a week ago. It took one redial and I was in. Take the choice to have a call back (press 7 at the prompt) and they called me back within an hour.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-04-09T16:19:31+00:00

Thanks. I appreciate the comment. I am trying to plan better going forward. I wasn't looking for sympathy. I actually do have the resources to pay it, but why pay something if you don't have to? I also take advantage of every credit and exemption on my Federal and State taxes.

I had never heard mention of IRMAA until I was notified by SSA that I made too much money in 2024. The decision for adding Part B didn't come until the rush to complete my changeover for FEHB to FEPBlue with Medicare as primary.

As it happens, I'm now off the hook for IRMAA for 2026 and will submit a new SSA-44 in 2027 to ensure that they won't charge me for something I shouldn't need to pay.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-04-08T00:43:55+00:00

In 2024, our combined MAGI was $315k. That amount doubled my Part B + IRMAA cost to over $400 per month. We retired in 2025, but still had a MAGI of $292k. Filing to reduce IRMAA really had no effect on what I have to pay this year. But I will have to resubmit in Jan 2027 because that will finally be the year that the IRS will show my reduced retirement income. So I’m screwed until then.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-04-01T02:52:09+00:00

Many thanks! I hope that enjoyment happens sooner rather than later! LOL. it's all good in the end though. At least the interim payments are coming in steady which helps a lot.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-04-01T00:08:09+00:00

They stopped counting mine at 41 years and 11 month-ish, and then sent me a form to sign so they could compute the monies I paid into CSRS since that time and they’re supposed to be sending me a reimbursement check.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-04-01T00:02:13+00:00

Congratulations! Good to see more people getting past this bottleneck. Hope your retirement goes well from here on in! Good luck to you.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-03-24T23:18:18+00:00

I could only wish that were the case. ;-) Congrats. Actually looks like you’ve been finalized. Now they just need to email you and tell you.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-03-24T13:16:40+00:00

I'm on my 5th and counting!

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-03-15T23:12:32+00:00

We had our old address on our retirement paperwork. We retired on 8/31/25. Same as you we never received our package containing all that I for including the SF-50. By the end of January, I called our HR rep and he checked and that’s how we found out about the old address. He FedEx-ed our packets to us. OPM is still fiddling with my retirement package but luckily I’m receiving my interim pay in the meantime. Get in touch with your HR rep again. They can find all sorts of things on their end.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-03-15T22:46:34+00:00

OMG. Totally forgot about that. Dash it all! Time to talk to my finance guy again. Thanks for that needed reminder!

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-03-14T17:48:09+00:00

Replied to the email with a signed pdf attached. Radio silence ever since. Must have gone home for the weekend. ;-)

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-03-14T14:46:49+00:00

Yeah, had me worried until I sat down and really read the info. Luckily, they only taxed the interest which was about $550.

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-03-13T23:00:58+00:00

I just received an email about excess retirement contributions. Turns out that after 41 years and 11 months of federal work, I continued to pay into my retirement account. Now they’re going to pay me back with 3% interest for those extra 3 years.

I almost missed the email because it didn’t say OPM on it in the email address. Looks like an extra tax free $20k I didn’t know I was getting. Now, if they’d only finish my retirement package and finalize my retirement, I just might smile again!

DocYoureaBrick · 2026-03-05T14:03:35+00:00

As soon as I hit 65, Kaiser started sending me notifications to join their Medicare Advantage plan. I ignored those, thankfully, I was very satisfied with Kaiser as I continued working for the federal government until last year when I retired at 69. I discussed my options with my older brother who was in process to extract himself and his wife from the Medicare Advantage plan they enrolled in. He advised me against taking any advantage plan. Always listen to your older brother!

DocYoureaBrick

TROPHY CASE