Your seven-month window
- Three months before: your Initial Enrollment Period opens.
- Your birthday month: Part A and Part B can begin on the first day of this month when you sign up in the first three months.
- Three months after: your Initial Enrollment Period closes.
Start Part A and Part B with Social Security
Sign up online, by phone, or at the Prescott office. If you already receive Social Security checks, you are enrolled automatically and your card arrives about three months before your birthday. After that, we help you compare the ways to receive the rest of your Medicare.
Penalties that last for life
- Part B can cost 10% more for each full 12 months you could have had it and did not, for as long as you have Part B.
- The drug plan penalty can apply when you go 63 days or more in a row without drug coverage that counts.
Bring these to your first meeting
- Your red, white and blue Medicare card, or the letter that came with it.
- A list of your doctors and where you see them, including specialists in Phoenix.
- Your prescriptions with doses. Bring the bottles in a bag if that is easier.
- Your current insurance cards and the pharmacy you use.