USCG Pay & Personnel Center

Direct Access User Guides Retiree Self-Service E-Gov Travel System (ETS)

TRICARE ALLOTMENT VERIFICATION

Following the DEERS incident and cancellation of TRICARE allotments in the past, you are strongly encouraged to verify an active allotment and status. You are not in danger of being dropped due to a 90-day grace for coverage. Any discrepancies can be resolved by submitting a PPC Help Ticket to re-establish the allotment: PPC-DG-CustomerCare@uscg.mil

We are aware of the problem with the TRICARE allotment(s) disappearing from pay slips. We are working with programmers to correct it. In the meantime, we encourage you to call TRICARE to ensure that your payment is current, and your coverage is not suspended. TRICARE: 1-800-538-9552.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and we are doing our best to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

ADVANCE PREPARATIONS FOR UPCOMING LIMITED AVAILABILITY TO DIRECT ACCESS (DA)

At 0600 EST, Wednesday, December 18, 2024, availability to DA will be limited to only those users performing tasks associated with 2025 payroll and regulatory changes. DA will be reactivated at 0600 EST, Friday, January 3, 2025. This limited availability is necessary to prevent the submission of self-service, unit P&A and SPO transactions that could potentially conflict with legislative and regulatory changes. Limited availability to DA impacts all active duty, reservists, retirees, annuitants, and civilian supervisors of military members. During this timeframe, access to self-service in DA for all users will be unavailable. This means no login access, including no ability to submit absence requests, no processing of pay or separation transactions and no processing of orders to include Reserve IDT, ADT, etc.

PASSWORD RESET

If your email address is NOT present or is incorrect, you will not be able to use the self-service password reset feature. Your business email address in DIRECT ACCESS must be added to the system or corrected. Active duty and Reserve members must contact your P&A office or Servicing Pay Office (SPO) for assistance to update.

Please note: Customer Care will no longer send password resets for active/reserve military members or civilian employees to personal email addresses. All password resets will be sent to USCG.MIL email addresses only. Do not submit multiple requests. Please allow 5 days upon submission for response.

Guide: Passwords and Set up/Update Security Questions

RETIRED PAY

At present, for temporary, permanent, VA offset, AEW’s, CRDP, and CRSC disability, we are encountering a processing delay due to systematic issues and a shortage of personnel. 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 proficiency.

Customer Service Feedback

Mailing Address:

Commanding Officer (Staff Symbol)
U.S. Coast Guard
Pay & Personnel Center
444 S. E. Quincy St.
Topeka, KS 66683-3591

Telephone

(866) 772-8724
0730-1600 (Central time) M-F

E-Mail

PPC-DG-CustomerCare@uscg.mil

Web Content Manager

Pay & Personnel News Updates from our Branches

Reminder for Soon-to-be-Retirees and DD-2656 Submission

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Nov. 16, 2023 —

Reminder for Soon-to-be-Retirees: Beginning January 1, 2024, PPC/RAS will no longer accept versions of the Form DD-2656 older than March 2022 as your application for retirement pay. There have been updates made to the form that allow for more efficiencies in processing new retiree accessions. Please submit your DD-2656 to PPC-DG-CustomerCare@uscg.mil at least 90 days prior to your date of retirement. Failure to provide this form - with a signature dated prior to your retirement date - will result in your enrollment in the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) for at least 24 months.

The DD-2656 and other necessary forms are listed in the Retirement Package and can be accessed online. Please complete the forms and worksheets legibly. We strongly recommend you fill them out online using the Adobe Acrobat program on the Coast Guard, PHS, or NOAA Standard Workstation. Completion of the Data for Payment of Retired Personnel Form (DD-2656) is mandatory to establish your account so you can be paid on time. The completed DD-2656 pdf must be scanned and attached to a PPC Help Ticket to PPC (RAS) at least 90 days prior to your date of retirement.

Many people will try opening a PDF form and find that they get an error that says "Please wait." This is not a problem with the form but has to do with the set-up of your computer's browser as the default for opening Adobe Acrobat forms. Many computers use the browser's built-in PDF viewer as the default for opening Adobe forms, but the browser's viewer cannot handle the macros built into the form. The simple solution to this problem is to save the form to your computer and then open the form by starting Acrobat Reader DC (from the start menu) and use it to open the form from its saved location. This should open the form in Adobe Acrobat Reader DC rather than your browser, allowing full functionality.

Note: We used the Microsoft Edge browser for this guide.

Click on a form link.
A message “The document you are trying to load…” appears instead of the form.
Click on the Save icon.
The file save dialog box will open.
Select a folder, rename the file (if desired), and save it.
Navigate to the folder where you saved the file.
Right-mouse click on the file icon or name and select Open with > Adobe Acrobat Reader DC.
Acknowledge any notices that appear.
Fill in the form, saving it periodically. Save and print when completed.