USPHS and NOAA Retirees/Annuitants/Former Spouses:
Because your allotments are tied to your pay (which is not paid during the government shutdown), no allotments will be paid during the government shutdown. You should contact payees of your allotments, advising them of the situation and request guidance on making payments directly. Contact information for major payees of allotments are provided below.
- NEW TRICARE WEST REGION
- TriWest Healthcare Alliance (TriWest) has replaced Health Net Federal Services, LLC (HNFS) as the West Region Contractor.
- TriWest is accessible at tricare.mil/west Phone# 888-874-9378
- HNFS will continue to provide service throughout the transition period and is accessible at https://www.hnfs.com/ Phone# 844-524-3578
- NEW TRICARE EAST REGION
- Humana Military will remain the contractor for the East Region and is accessible at tricare-east.com Phone# 800-444-5445
What's my TRICARE region in 2025? To see which TRICARE region you reside, just enter your 5 digit ZIP Code in the block accessible at: https://tricare.mil/About/Regions
FEDVIP (Vision and Dental) – Phone# 877-888-3337
Federal Long-Term Health Insurance – Phone# 800-582-3337
Veterans Group Life Insurance (OSGLI/VGLI) – Phone# 800-419-1473
IMPORTANT NOTE - The government shutdown and your lapse in pay has NO effect on your DEERS/ID Card Eligibility, which you can confirm by calling the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) Support Office. Phone# 800-538-9552
NOAA/ PHS retired Payslips
Payslips are automatically generated as part of the overall payroll process and no NOAA or PHS retiree payments were made due to no funding.
KNOWN ISSUE in mLINQS
There is currently a known issue in mLINQS FSC is working on. The error is being caused when an amendment is done in mLINQ that removes the expense lines that had a payment processed against it for an advance and another amendment is processed to add the expenses back in. This action creates duplicate lines in FSMS and produces a “fetch error” as FSMS does not know how to process against the multiple lines due to a payment being tied to one. There is currently a SNOW ticket open at FSC Tier 3/FSMS.
Duplicate Relocations Found in mLINQS from Unauthorized Manual Entries
There have been several duplicate PCS relocations found in mLINQS causing a plethora of issues.
AO’s and/or proxies should NOT be entering relocations manually in mLINQS without contacting PPC first (customer care ticket) as relocations should be processed from DA to mLINQS. Below are the steps to take if a relocation has not processed from DA to mLINQS.
If the PCS relocation has been put in a “ready” status in DA and is not found in mLINQS :
- Contact PPC customer care via trouble ticket subject “re-submit to mLINQS” and PPC will manually re-submit this relocation over to mLINQS.
- If PPC cannot process this relocation over to mLINQS due to a systems error, we will work with the AO on manual entry.
- Relocations input using the legacy process should still submit a ticket to finish those claims using the legacy process calculator method. Only if they have already started using the legacy process.
- Any manual input relocations into mLINQS outside of this process will require an AO/proxy re-training and possible revocation of elevated permissions.
RETIRED PAY
PPC is addressing a processing delay due to systematic issues and a shortage of personnel. This is causing a delay in response efforts for VA offsets, AEWs, CRDP, and CRSC disability. You remain our primary concern. We want to assure you that we are fully committed to resolving these issues promptly and handling your cases with utmost care and accuracy.