What Prime and Select actually cost you in 2026, once you count the fees nobody adds up
The Select deductible is on top of the copay, not instead of it. This is the single most common misreading of the cost tables. TRICARE Select carries an annual outpatient deductible, and once you have met it you still pay the full network copayment for every visit. Preventive care is $0 and does not touch the deductible.
Enrollment fees count toward the catastrophic cap. Premiums do not. If you hit the cap in a bad year, you stop paying enrollment fees for the rest of the calendar year. That protection does not extend to TRICARE Reserve Select, Retired Reserve, or Young Adult premiums, which sit outside the cap entirely.
Your group is set by the sponsor's entry date, not the retirement date. Group A is a sponsor whose initial enlistment or appointment came before January 1, 2018. Group B is on or after. A soldier who enlisted in 2014 and retires in 2038 is still Group A.
Prime is not available everywhere. It requires living in a Prime Service Area with an assigned primary care manager, and specialty care needs a referral. Going outside that without a referral triggers the point-of-service option: a separate $300 individual or $600 family deductible, then a 50% cost-share, and none of it counts toward your catastrophic cap. That is the expensive mistake this calculator cannot model for you.
| Retirees | Prime Group A | Select Group A | Prime Group B | Select Group B |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enrollment, individual | $381.96 | $186.96 | $462.96 | $594.96 |
| Enrollment, family | $765 | $375 | $927 | $1,191 |
| Deductible, family | $0 | $300 | $0 | $397 |
| Primary care | $26 | $38 | $26 | $33 |
| Specialty care | $39 | $52 | $39 | $52 |
| Emergency | $79 | $138 | $79 | $105 |
| Catastrophic cap | $3,000 | $4,381 | $4,635 | $4,635 |
Read the last two columns carefully. Every Group B Select figure is higher than or equal to the Group B Prime figure beside it, and the Group B catastrophic cap is $4,635 under both plans. That has a consequence most guides never state.
Group A if the sponsor's initial enlistment or appointment was before January 1, 2018. Group B if on or after. It never changes.
For Group B, Prime, at every level of use, because Select costs more on every single line and the cap is identical. For Group A it is a real trade-off: Select's enrollment fee is about $390 lower for a family, and Prime's copays are lower, so Prime overtakes Select at roughly eight primary care visits a year.
Nothing under Prime for network care. No enrollment fee, no deductible, no copays. Select costs money. Prime is always cheaper for active duty families in network, so choose Select for access and provider freedom, never to save money.
Yes for Prime and Select. Once you reach the cap, enrollment fees stop for the rest of the year. TRS, TRR, and TYA premiums never count toward it, and point-of-service charges never count.
TRICARE Reserve Select runs $57.88 a month for a member and $286.66 for a member and family. TRICARE Retired Reserve, for gray-area retirees, runs $645.90 and $1,548.30. Both follow Group B cost-shares. See the Guard and Reserve calculator for the retirement side.
All data on this page comes from official government sources. Verify independently:
📎 TRICARE 2026 Costs and Fees (DHA fact sheet)📎 Compare Health Plan Costs (TRICARE)📎 Catastrophic Cap (TRICARE)📍 This is an estimate. Your regional contractor and the TRICARE Compare Cost Tool are authoritative. Both are free.
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