Do I Have to Take Medicare at Age 65 If I Qualify?

When you reach retirement, you start receiving your Social Security benefits, which include your retirement and Medicare. Medicare starts at 65 years of age unless you are disabled and you qualify to receive it earlier. If you already receive retirement benefits, you are automatically enrolled in Part A and Part B. (If you are from Puerto Rico, you are only enrolled in Part A.)

Medicare at 65 Years of Age

• To qualify to receive Medicare Part A for free, the only requirement you must meet is that you must have paid Medicare tax. To qualify to receive other parts of Medicare (for which you do have to pay monthly premiums), you have to be enrolled in Part A and usually Part B. If you meet these requirements, you can enroll in Medicare three months before your 65th birthday until three months later. However, you are not required to do so. You are allowed to not enroll in Medicare if you wish not to do it. The only part of Medicare that is assigned to you either way is Part A, which is free.

Consequences of Not Enrolling in Medicare

• You are allowed to not enroll in Medicare Parts B, C and D when you turn 65 years of age, even if you qualify to do so. You are actually not required to sign up at any moment. However, if you do decide to sign up for Medicare, you should do it when you become eligible for enrollment because Medicare applies a late penalty to everyone who does not join during the time they become eligible. If you think you do not need Medicare now, but you know or think you will need it later, you should consider enrolling while you are still in the period for enrollment (when you turn 65 years of age).

Enrollment Periods

• You become eligible to sign up for Medicare when you turn 65. If you are automatically enrolled in Medicare Part A and Part B, you only need to decide if you are going to enroll in Parts C and D (a late penalty does not apply for Part C.) If you have group insurance through your employer, you will not be penalized if you do not enroll when you turn 65 years of age, but enroll later. However, you only have eight months after your group coverage ends to sign up for Medicare without a penalty.

Penalty

• Analyze what is the best option for you. If you do not need more coverage from Medicare other than Part A, and you do not want to pay premiums for a coverage you do not need, maybe not enrolling yet is the right decision for you. However, consider the possibility that you could need it later. As of 2011, a penalty of 10 percent of your monthly premium applies in the case of Part B every month. For Part D, you must pay 1 percent of $32.34 (the national base beneficiary premium) times all the months that you did not join when you were eligible.