After filing the right paperwork, I received notice from the Social Security Administration that I was confirmed as eligible for Medicare. Medicare Part A (hospital) started April 2021, Part D (prescriptions) started (no date - but "can enroll"), and Part B (medical/out-patient) starts July 2022.
July 2022. Wait a minute. Why so late when Parts A and D were active?
About noon, I called the number in the letter, the 1-800-MEDICARE number. I was on-hold for a while and then spoke to a nice woman; I did not catch her name. She was generally helpful, but the computers were down, so she could not check any specifics. She advised that I call back later, when the computers were back up. OK.
About 2pm, I called 1-800-MEDICARE again. After a long time on-hold, I was able to speak with Wanda. Wanda was rather the opposite of the first woman. Wanda was not very helpful. In summary, she said that I had called Medicare and needed to call Social Security. She did not accept that the letter had me call Medicare - that was not going to be her problem. As the computers were back up, I asked for my Medicare number. She said I had to have a reason. I told her that I had not received my card with the number and we were in the midst of the enrollment period, so I needed my number. That seemed to satisfy her and she put me on-hold. I eventually connected with Greg. Greg was very helpful and gave me my number. It took a while, but it worked.
About 2:30, I called Social Security at 1-800-772-1213. I spent my time on-hold and was connected with Sarah. She listened to my story and looked at the records. To her assessment, I had been put in the general enrollment for Part B in July 2022 rather than special enrollment for new Part B people. She said that I needed to call the Social Security Bellevue office. I needed to ask them to put me in the special enrollment category.
About 3pm, immediately after I got off the line with Sarah, I called the Bellevue Social Security office at 1-866-574-2323. I was on hold for about 28 minutes and SS-Bellevue dropped the call.
About 3:30pm, I called SS-Bellevue back. I was on hold for about 25 minutes and I got a recording announcing that they could not connect me to an agent, advised me to call back again, and hung up.
The Bellevue office closes at 4pm.
So I spent literally hours on the phone to get nothing. Well, OK, I finally have my Medicare number, but that was not the main purpose of the day.
I wil lbe back on the phone tomorrow at 9am to the Bellevue office to fix this.
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