Welcome to Medicare School Daily, where we help you understand Medicare,
save money, avoid mistakes, and above all else, get the most out of your Medicare benefits. Now,
today's topic is how to find your Medicare number. And if you have enrolled into Medicare,
you're certainly going to have a Medicare number. And so the question is, yes, we want to know how
to find it, but I have to make sure that indeed you already have a Medicare number. And so there's
one of two ways in which we get a Medicare number. Now, one way is if we are on Social Security. So
if you've applied for Social Security, and you're receiving Social Security benefits,
what happens is this: you will be auto enrolled into Medicare. Okay, there's nothing you have
to do. The Social Security Department knows you're turning 65, so they will automatically
enroll into Medicare. And in this scenario, what happens is your Medicare card shows up
about 100 days prior to your birth month. All right? So nothing you have to do. The card's going
to show up in the mail. Now, there are some times when people's card does not show up, and they may
need to go on and find that number or maybe they accidentally threw it away or maybe went to the
wrong address. But if you need your Medicare number and you are automatically enrolled,
you better follow the system that I’m going to show you to get that Medicare clean number.
Now, there are times when people are not on Social Security, but they are going to start Medicare.
So if you are not on Social Security, meaning you're delaying taking your Social Security,
but you're gonna take Medicare. What happens? You will not be automatically enrolled.
As a matter of fact, in order for you to be able to start Medicare,
you are going to have to self enroll. You've got to go to that self enrollment process,
which also you can do on SSA.gov. And that process will take you anywhere from probably 20 minutes
or so to get everything set up. And so if you do self enroll, what's going to happen is once you've
completed the self enrollment process, you're going to have your Medicare card within about
four weeks. But if you need your number prior to that, within one week of you self enrolling,
maybe a week to 10 days, you should better follow this process and get your Medicare clean them. So
here's the process. Number one, you're gonna go and your search bar to SSA.gov. And once
you see this particular picture, you're actually going to click over here where it says sign in or
sign up. And once you have clicked that button, it's going to take you to a second screen, and
you're going to have a few options here. And this is the one that you're going to click on where
it says, my Social Security. This is all your information about Social Security and Medicare.
So click there, and that's going to take you to the next screen. And here, you're going to have
the option to either sign in an account that you already created or create a new account. And so
if you do have an account already, you hopefully have saved your username and password. Now with
your user name, it is not case sensitive at all. You just have to type that in here. Password is
case sensitive. And if you're in here putting the password in, you're always going to have a
capital letter, a small letter, one number, and one symbol. All those have to be a part of your
password; has to be at least eight characters. So you'll type in this. It is case sensitive. Now,
if you don't have a username and password, then you're going to have to create an account. And
the process of creating an account is going to probably take you about 15 to 20 minutes. But
once you have that, now we have our username and our password. We're able to sign in. That takes us
to the next screen, and what they're going to do is once we have the account, then what we're doing
is we're letting them know we want you to send us a code. And it's going to be an eight digit code.
And it's asking you, do you want that sent to this certain email address or do you want it sent to
a phone number, a text? And so once you've agreed to that and you'll push next.
And then you will now get that code from Medicare. Now, that code will show up anywhere from about
20 seconds upwards to about two minutes. And it's only good for 10 minutes. So when the code comes,
that eight digit code, it's gonna be all numbers. And you're going to put that eight
digit code right here. And of course, you'll click there on Submit once you've typed it in. And now
you're going to agree to the terms of service. So everything that you want to move forward with,
you have to agree to these terms. So you'll, of course, push next here. And this is going to take
you to this screen. Now, this is absolutely the most important part. So we've got to go to the
screen about to get our Medicare clean number. So this is really the very, very important screen.
And over on the far right side, you're going to see these different options. And the one you want
is replacement documents. And so once you've clicked onto that, it's immediately gonna open
up this particular document where it's going to give you some options here. It's going to say
with your Medicare card, do you want a replacement card? And the answer is no, because you're just
simply waiting on your card to be mailed to you. If you have lost it, then go ahead and click that.
But if you want your number, you've got to click here, get a benefit verification letter. Now,
from here, we do have to make sure that the pop ups are allowable. OK? So we've clicked on this,
and that pop up is going to be your information, including your Medicare clean number. So, again,
make sure your pop ups are allowed. If not, you need to turn that on for sure. And then what it’s
going to say here is that you're entitled to hospital insurance, remember that's part
A of Medicare, and you're entitled to medical insurance, which is part B. And it’ll tell you,
when that coverage began; in this instance, it was in the month of August 2018. August 2018. So
it’s going to show you when your coverage began to be eligible, and then your Medicare number is
right here. Obviously, we blocked this one out because it's one of our clients, but it's going
to be eleven digits. There's some numbers and some letters. They're just random numbers and letters,
but that will be your Medicare claim number. So if you need that number and you don't have
your card yet or you've lost your card or maybe just misplaced it in some fashion, then you can
go right here and you'll be able to get that information for the doctors or for whatever
the purpose that you need this Medicare claim number. So that's the process you need to follow.