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 you're turning sixty-five, and the question is, when does Medicare start? So let's answer this
question. Number one, if you are receiving Social Security, you're already receiving the Social
Security benefits, notice this, your Medicare A and B starts the first day of your sixty-fifth
birth month. All right? So your birth month is when your Medicare eligibility begins. And if
you're on Social Security, that's when it's going to start. Now, there is one exception to this. If
you're born on the first day of any month, your Medicare will begin the previous month. OK,
so if I'm born July 1, Medicare is going to begin June 1. If I'm born on December 1,
my Medicare is going to begin November 1. But if I'm born on the second day thereafter, any day
in the month then my Medicare is going to begin on my birth month. And so if you're receiving
a Social Security check, what's going to happen: about three months prior to your birth month, your
Medicare card is going to be automatically mailed to you. They know you're turning sixty-five,
they assume because you're receiving retirement benefits, you don't have a work plan available.
So they mail you the card about three months prior to when your birth month is, and that's when your
Medicare is going to begin. Now, notice, though, if you're not receiving a Social Security check,
notice this, your Medicare A and B starts depending upon when you enroll.
And so you have this opportunity to enroll in Medicare. And the month that you decide to enroll
is going to be when they will begin your Medicare benefits. So let me explain how that works.
So for those of you not on Social Security, you have the opportunity to enroll in Medicare
at sixty-five. That opportunity is called your initial enrollment period. We use the acronym IEP,
and anyone that's going to take Medicare at 65, and they have to self enroll, they have an IEP.
And notice how long this IEP lasts. It lasts for seven months. And in this example, what we're
saying is this is someone who is born during the month of July, remember July 2nd or thereafter.
This would be their timeline or their time frame. Alright? If they're born July 1, remember,
it's going to be a previous month, so they have a little bit of a different timeline. But this
is someone born July 2nd thereafter. And so what happens if someone is born in July, that if they
enroll the first three months, April, May or June, notice what happens: their coverage begins July 1.
And so if you want your coverage to begin on your birth month and you have to self enroll, you will
do it those first three months. But if you delay your enrollment into Medicare and we enroll any
of these four months right here, what happens is your coverage is also going to be delayed.
So here's what happens: if my birthday is in July, and I enroll into Medicare during
the month of July, they're going to start me in August. We'll start August 1st. All right? Now,
if my birthday's in July, and I make the decision to enroll in Medicare the next
month during the month of August, notice what they're going to do now, they're going
to start me in October. What happened? They skipped September. And so in our business,
we call this month that was just skipped. We call this the dead month. This is the month
that you cannot start your Medicare, and all of us have a dead month. And that is always the second
month after our birth month. So I was born in January 1961. Not Medicare-eligible yet, but I was
born in January, so my dead month will be March. And so someone who's born in July, they're dead
month is the second month after that, which is the month of September. So you cannot start Medicare
during your dead month. So someone says to me, Marvin, I like to really start September
because I'm going to work all the way through the end of August. I would say we can't do that
because that's your dead month. It's impossible. So what we would do is we'd actually just move you
up to the very month before; you’ll have to spend the extra money for your Part B premium one extra
month, it's your only option. And so you would start in, this example, in August because we can't
start in September. Right? So we would enroll in July for an August start date. All right? And so
when we enroll during these months will determine whether Medicare benefits are going to begin.
Let me just show you one more illustration of that. So, again, this is someone using
their initial enrollment period. They're starting at sixty-five. And in this example,
their birth month is July. So what happens again if I enroll in Medicare in July, they're going to
start me in August. If I enroll in August, they're going to start me in October. Remember what that's
called? That's called our dead month, right? If my birthday's in July, I enroll in Medicare in
September, they're going to put me off to the third month, so now I don't have coverage until
December. If my birth month is July, and I enroll in October. What's going to happen? Now they're
going to put me off until January. So what's happening? If I enroll in my birth month, I
start the next month. If I waited one month after my birth month, you're going to put me off two
months. If I wait two, they put me off three. If I wait three, they put me off three more months.
So the month that you enroll is going to determine when your Medicare benefits are going to begin.
I want to close this video out with give you some very practical advice that you need to
know. Number one, if you are not working at sixty-five or you're not covered by a spouse's
employer-provided plan, so you or your spouse not working, what happens? Here's the number one rule.
You must folks begin Medicare at sixty-five. You have no options. And again, when you self enroll
will determine when that coverage is going to begin. But if you or your spouse not working,
you're going to have to start your Medicare at sixty-five. Number two, you must self enroll,
notice, if you're not on Social Security. Remember, if you're on Social Security, you're
going to be enrolled automatically. Medicare is going to show up about three months prior
to when your Medicare coverage begins. But if not, Medicare doesn't assume anything about you.
You're not going to get a card in the mail, so you're going to have to do that self-enrollment.
Remember, that's why you have to have the SSA.gov account. After you have that account, then you
can enroll online. If you would like us as a company to help you; have one of our Medicare
School guides walk you through the whole process, we're happy to do that. But you're going to have
to have the ssa.gov account, and you're going to have to do the Medicare enrollment. And then
number three, if you're going to start Medicare at sixty-five because you're not working, then you're
also going to have to decide during this period of time that initial enrollment period, you have to
decide upon all the insurance that you need beyond Medicare. A and B is typically not all you need.
You're going to probably need a prescription drug plan, maybe an advantage plan, or maybe
a supplemental plan. But all those insurance products have to be bought during that initial
enrollment period as well. And then lastly, those of you that are still working. Let me just give
you this bit of advice. Number one, you don't have to do anything as far as Medicare A and B
is concerned if you or your spouse are still working. In fact, you'll have people tell you that
if you're working, your spouse is still working. You have to enroll in Medicare A
and folks, that's not true. You don't have to take Medicare A if you're covered by some kind
of a group employer-provided plan. You just don't have to, and you will not be penalized.
Right? But you don't have to do anything. Or what you could do is just enroll in, notice,
into A only and many of you will do this. Now, if you decide to do that, that's fine. But don't do
it because you think you'll get a penalty because you're not going to get a penalty if Medicare A is
free. If A is free, it's always free and there are no penalties. But if you do decide to enroll into
Medicare A only, here's where once you realize: if you are still working and you're covered by a
high deductible plan at work that has attached to it an HSA, if you have a health savings
account and you decide to enroll in Medicare A only, no more money can go into your HSA.
So stop your contributions to your HSA if you or your spouse keep working
and you decide to take Medicare A. No new contributions. All right? Number three,
you can enroll in A and B. In fact, there are lots of people today that keep working
and they say no to the employer group plan, and they're saying yes to Medicare because sometimes
Medicare makes more sense for them. Sometimes it's better coverage and sometimes it's a better cost.
And so if Medicare does make sense then you can disenroll from the group plan, and you can enroll
into A and B according to all the rules that I just taught you. And then if you decide to do
that, then, of course, you are going to have to decide upon some other insurance products. Again,
advantage plans, supplemental plans, prescription drug plans, all those plans are available to you.
And you'd want to take those as soon as you enrolled in Medicare A and B.
All right? And again, if you need guidance through this whole process our Medicare School guides
will walk you through this whole process, will hold your hand, make it very, very simple.
All right? So that's the situation that you face if you're going to start Medicare at 65.