anyone load up on doc visits to use up sick days before retirement?

[retiringat50]

Decided in Dec that I'll be retiring this coming June 20th at my 10yr anniversary
Husband carries the health insurance and will be continuing to work another 5-7yr so no we wont be loosing coverage.
Have about 30 days sicktime in the bank and dont want to loose it all. I booked DS15 his doc appt, myself eye, husband has neurologist and thyroid doc appts. Also looking into bunion surgery.
Anyone else find themselves at the doctors more in the months leading up to retirement so they can use more of their sicktime?

[JonnyM]

Our plant allowed us to trade them for either cash (1/4 value) or time served at the end of the road.

[Purron]

I just retired early. I was with the federal government FERS plan, so didn't get anything for my sick leave. I scheduled all my appointments, took a few "mental health" days and still left with nearly 500 hours of sick leave.

[73ss454]

Yes, leading up to and after retirement you'll be seeing Dr's more often. It's called preventive maintance or old age take your pick.

[aaronc879]

Sick days? What are those? Never been givin one in my life.

[W2R]

I think everyone at my work loads up on doctor visits their last year before retirement. Taking sick days is only one of a number of reasons for this. Another good reason is to find out if there is something serious wrong.

Even if the insurance is the same before and after retirement, a person might need the extra income from working in order to deal with ancillary costs of a serious illness, such as traveling to top hospitals in other cities, and so on.

[msully76]

Well you are probalby not going to like my response since I am in charge of handling the attendance of approximately 175 staff members. Sick time is for when we are sick and many people would feel very fortunate to get paid when they are sick. Leaving sick time when you retire only means that you have been fortunate that you have been healthy not that you have to now take time off to make sure you don't feel cheated. Certainly there are appoitments that can't be made outside of work but the attitude that sick time is something we are owed is affecting the entire work force in our society. If everyone took all the sick time they are entitled to we would be in big trouble.

[martyb]

I work for the fed under the old CSRS plan, so when I retire any sick leave I have saved up will be creditable towards time for retirement. Every 174 hr multiple will count as 1 month and will add 1/6th of a percent to my retirement check. However, since during my younger years I was foolish and squandered my sick leave I won't have all that much, possible only about 4 or 5 months worth at most. Still, I'll take every little bit I can get. I plan to retire with a total of 36 years exactly. And....on my birthday!

[Fireup2020]

I "squander" my sick leave. I plan for the future, and live for today. When feeling lousy & possibly contagious, I stay home! I prefer to be miserable in my own bed rather than at my office with people close enough to hear my sniffles/snorts. Ewww! I appreciate it when others reciprocate the favor! One of the guys in my office has not taken a sick day since 1996! (he has the date on his wall) Planning on having them purchase it all back. That is something I have a minor problem with (the state buying it back up to $30K) - but then again, I have more important things to ponder

[ziggy29]

We loaded up on my wife's prescriptions before switching to an HDHP and HSA this year, but other than that, not so much. We've already switched medications in one case -- DW was on Lexapro for mood swings but just had her prescription switched to Celexa because it had a generic version (citalopram) -- and that dropped an $80-90 monthly drug to $11 at our local small-town pharmacy.

[maddythebeagle]

Sure, I would use the time now if have a lot of health care visits to take care of...

[Goonie]

I had 136 sick days banked. My employer paid me for 45 of those days....the max they'll reimburse. The other 91 days were applied to my pension as additional service credit....20 days = 1 month credit. Therefore it figured out to 9 weeks pay, and 5 additional months of service credit! I only wish I would've banked more and used less!

[lazygood4nothinbum]

what happens if they find a pre-existing condition before you go to private insurance?

my fortune mc5 never let us carry over sick days. nor vacation days. it was a use it or lose it policy. for my first five or 10 years there i didn't take a single sick day. then my back went out real bad due to a past accident. i was out of work for about a week and a half. the bastids wrote me up for it. i got this scathing letter about how unfair i was being to everyone else (as if anyone did a spit of my work, yeah, right).

so for the next 10 years, each year, i somehow managed to use every sick day coming to me. ingrates!