I became eligible for Medicare on June 1, 2020. Now, Almost 3 months later, I still don't have a number or card. I applied for Medicare on-line in plenty of time (April 3, 2020.). I collected Disability back in the early 90's. Social Security is telling me that that is what is holding it up, but can't (or won't) tell me what that has to do with it. In the meantime, I am having to pay for all of my medical expenses out of pocket. I have called Social Security many times. I have written to politicians, Social Security, Medicare, all with no success in getting my Medicare. What else can I do to get Medicare, a program that I have paid into for 30 years. Thank you for any help you can give me.

Hi,

I assume you mean that you turned age 65 in June 2020, making you eligible for an initial enrollment period (IEP) for Medicare. If so, it sounds like you've done everything right, especially if you've already sought help from your congressional representatives. Unfortunately, I don't really know what more you can do other than continue to follow up with Social Security.

Not that it's any help, but I can tell you that the fact that you drew disability benefits in the past is probably the cause of the delay. When a previous record of benefit entitlement exists in Social Security's computer system, it can prevent automated processing of a new claim filed by that individual. That means that in order to process the new claim, one or more Social Security employees must take action to update the person's current computer record. That can result in substantially slower processing, because when no prior record exists Social Security's automated process can establish a new computer record from scratch. Still, though, I wouldn't think it would take Social Security as long as 5 months to manually process a Medicare claim, but they may be experiencing problems of which I'm unaware. And, I'm sure that the coronavirus hasn't helped them.

Best, Jerry