(This is extremely specialized subject material. If you found it while searching, you probably understand this, but if you’re just a curious reader, you might want to skip it.)
The Continued Health Care Benefit Program is analogous to COBRA for former TRICARE-covered persons; it is mostly a transitional way to get TRICARE-like (TRICARE less military facilities) benefits self-paid after one ceases to be eligible for TRICARE itself.
Generally the CHCBP eligibility period is limited. However, in the case of former spouses of servicemembers who have not remarried before age 55, it is possible to qualify for unlimited (lifetime) eligibility. This is obvious from law and from published stuff (e.g. continuing legal education materials for the tiny subset of lawyers for whose clients this is a very important topic), but it is nearly impossible to get anything from the “horse’s mouth,” that is, the actual CHCBP plan administrator, which is Humana Military Healthcare Services (Humana Military).
If you call Humana Military at 1-800-444-5445 and ask for the rules regarding former spouse unlimited eligibility, they will punt and tell you it’s something that is decided only at the point at which the normal 3-year eligibility has expired. If you persist and ask how it’s decided, they’ll tell you that there is a questionnaire which is sent, but that they don’t have access to it and can’t send a copy. If, incredulous, you insist that some person, perhaps that person’s manager, does in fact know where the questionnaire is, since it’s obviously already written and gets sent out to people all the time, you will get transferred to a kindly manager who takes your FAX number and swears up and down that they’ll send it to you tomorrow morning since the office is about to close.
If you’re a real ornery gadfly, though, and you’re ready to start writing letters to your congressman etc., you might try sending a letter to Humana Military asking for this information and documenting your attempts to get it and the promises which were made and unfulfilled about sending it to you before. If you do all this, they will mail you a redacted copy of an actual form CHCBP-13, which had been sent to an actual former spouse whose eligibility was expiring. (Maybe, in fact, the first representative was truthful and this is not a document that they have ready, and they write up a new one every time and so the only way to send it out is to take the latest one and redact the policyholder’s personal info. I doubt it.) (For this courtesy I am grateful, O unnamed mail-replier at Humana Military, but the policy of keeping this information completely off the public Web is either backwards or sinister.)
Note that the operative requirements are:
1. A “signed statement of assurance that you have not remarried before the age of 55.”
2. Proof (the standard of which is left to the imagination) that you were “enrolled in, or covered by, an approved health benefits plan under Chapter 55, Title 10, United States Code as the dependent of a retiree at any time during the 18-month period before the date of the divorce, dissolution, or annulment (Both TRICARE and CHCPB would qualify as such a plan).” [sic — Humana’s language implies that the enrolee must have been a dependent of a “retiree” but the actual language of 10 USC 55 sec. 1078a (b) (3) talks about a “member or former member” of the armed forces]
3. “A copy of the final divorce decree or other authoritative evidence” that you are actually receiving or have a court order to receive part of the retired or retainer pay of the service member, or have a written agreement that the service member will elect to provide you an annuity. [DO NOT rely on this nor on Humana’s exact language, for this, get your ducks in a row with the statute etc. — it’s slightly complicated.]
4. The executed (signed) renewal notice page of CHCBP-013 and a check for the next premium payable to “United States Treasury.”
Given that this is a hugely important item to a few (but maybe not all that few) people out there, and that it related to the execution of very clear federal law, I’m rather shocked that there’s no mention ***anywhere on the Internet prior to today(!!!)*** of CHCBP-013 and its contents and requirements.
So, with no further ado, I present you a redacted copy of form letter CHCBP-13, which shows the actual procedural requirements for obtaining unlimited former spouse CHCBP coverage.