Turning 65? Here is the whole thing on one page.

When can I sign up for Medicare?

Your first window is seven months long: the three months before the month you turn 65, your birthday month, and the three months after. Sign up in the three months before and your coverage starts the first day of your birthday month. Sign up in your birthday month or after and it starts the first of the next month.

How do I actually sign up?

Through Social Security, not Medicare. If you already get a Social Security check, you are signed up for Part A and Part B on your own and the card comes in the mail about three months before your birthday. If you are not drawing Social Security yet, you apply at ssa.gov, by phone, or at the Social Security office. We walk people through it every week.

What are Part A and Part B?

Part A is the hospital side. Most people pay nothing for it, because they paid in through work for ten years or more. Part B is the doctor side, and it has a monthly premium that comes out of your Social Security check. The 2026 numbers are on our 2026 Medicare page.

I am still working. Do I have to take Part B at 65?

Usually not, if you have health coverage through a job at an employer with 20 or more employees, yours or your spouse's. You can take Part A (it is free) and wait on Part B. When the job coverage ends you get an eight month window to sign up for Part B with no penalty. If the employer has fewer than 20 employees, call us before you decide. It matters.

What are the penalties everyone talks about?

Two of them. The Part B penalty is 10 percent added to your premium for every full year you could have had Part B and did not, and it stays for life. The Part D penalty is 1 percent for every month you went without drug coverage that counts, and it stays too. Both are easy to dodge if you know the windows, which is what we are for.

Supplement or Advantage?

That is the big decision, and it depends on your doctors, your prescriptions, your budget and how you like to use your coverage. A Medicare Supplement rides with Original Medicare and covers the gaps. A Medicare Advantage plan replaces it with a private plan, often with a drug plan built in. We shop all the major companies and you never pay us a fee.

Why does the six month Medigap window matter?

For the six months after your Part B starts you can buy any Medicare Supplement plan sold in your state with no health questions. After that window the company can ask about your health and can say no. If a supplement is where you are headed, the timing is everything.