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your family? Do you have any specialist needs? Remember, the healthier
you are, the lower options of the consumer-driven and High-Deductible
Health Plans become. You’ll also want to consider what health services
are important to you. Think about well child checkups, chiropractic care,
mental health, emergency services, preventative screenings and
hospitalization. There are probably only a few of these services that are
important to you, and these needs will change over the years, which is
why you’ll want to review your health coverage at least every three years.
The plan documents that outline each insurer’s coverage can be
intimidating. Although they are supposed to make choosing a plan easier,
they often serve the opposite purpose. They appear overwhelming and,
as a result, many employees simply stay with the same plan from year-to-
year without evaluating whether it’s still the best coverage for them. Let’s
take a closer look: OPM did a great thing for you in terms of the plan
documents. Any insurer who provides coverage under the federal health
plan must organize their plan documents in the same format. This means
that all the plans will have similar features in approximately the same
place in each document. An example: any plan changes are documented
in section 2. Even if you don’t plan to change health plans, you should
always look at this section for the plan you’re currently in, so you’re
aware of any changes to the plan for the upcoming year. Detailed benefit
descriptions always appear in section 5. You’ll look here if you have a
chronic condition and want to see exactly how it’s handled. A summary
of all plan benefits always appears in section 11.

Medicare

We’ll close out this chapter with a short overview of Medicare and
how it integrates with your federal employee health benefits. One of the
most common questions we hear is what to do about Medicare and my
federal employee health benefits when I turn 65. There are four
components to Medicare:

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