Question: I am 63 and am getting curious about Medicare coverage. What resources do you suggest? When should I apply for Medicare?

Answer: Time does seem to fly by, and the older we get the faster it goes. I understand your eagerness to learn about Medicare. For most of our adult lives, we don’t have to think too much about our health insurance. It is usually one of the benefits we get from our employer or our spouse’s employer. Once a year they send us material to look over and decide which plan we want to choose from. The choices are usually limited to a few different types of plans.

As we approach Medicare, all of a sudden it becomes our responsibility to research and decide about health insurance in a whole new way than we’re used to. The language is new to us, the options are unknown – where do we even begin? And when?

One resource you have at your disposal is the www.medicare.gov. This is the website run by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). This website allows you to research and learn about Medicare and the multitude of offerings available to you. It also explains your timeline for when to sign up, and how to do so.

To answer your question, you are eligible to sign up for Medicare during the three month period before the month in which you’ll turn 65. For example, I am born in October, so my three months sign up period is July, August & September. When I sign up for Medicare in those three months, any coverage option I’ve chosen would begin

October 1, because it’s the first of the month in which I turn 65.

To actually sign up for Medicare, you can go through the SSA.gov website OR by contacting your local Social Security office. You can sign up in person using a paper application (CMS-18-f-5). If you search for this form on the internet, you can download or print out a copy of it, so you can start it yourself. I actually promote using this paper application, as it allows you to keep a copy of what you turned in, and the local offices tend to process the paperwork very quickly and efficiently.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. You have almost two years before you’d have to sign up. So let’s talk about your timeline with Medicare some more. As I said, the www.medicare.gov is a great learning resource. The Medicare Rights Center is another useful resource. Their website is www.medicarerights.org. They have videos, newsletters, and events you can learn from in an ongoing basis.

Another local resource is Lawley Insurance. They have an entire team of Medicare consultants available to assist you with all things related to Medicare. One service they offer their weekly “Making Sense of Medicare” seminars, which are small group seminars held each week to learn about Medicare and all of its parts. In these seminars, they will also address some questions about planning for Medicare eligibility. They even review how Medicare works with employer coverage, retiree coverage, and VA benefits.

These seminars usually last an hour, or can go up to an hour and half, depending on the questions that attendees have. This is a free seminar with no obligation or requirements.

It is important to remember that insurance changes every year. Medicare premium rates, deductibles, and the products that go along with Medicare are different every year. So what is accurate for today in 2026 won’t be exactly accurate for 2028, when you turn 65, but it will give you a baseline to work from.

If you start looking into Medicare right now, I’d recommend getting an idea for how the parts work generally, then checking in again in a year or so and see what has changed and what the rates and products are in 2027.as you prepare for turning 65 in 2028. It will be here before you know it!

Janell Sluga is a Geriatric Care Manager helping seniors in our community access services and insurance. To reach her, please email editorial@post-journal.com.