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At age 65 you are supposed to sign up for all things Medicare. Under some conditions, if you don't sign for Parts B and D, there may be fines and late penalties you could be subject to later on.

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However, If you will still be working beyond your 65th birthday and will have good group health coverage through your or your spouse's work (this only counts if employer has 20 or more employees) then here is what typically happens:

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You actually only need to get Part A (which doesn't cost you anything). You then will have Part A and your work coverage and this is good enough. In this case you are not subject to any fines or late penalties as long as your work coverage is a full blown regular health plan and also includes prescription benefits.

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Later at any  point when you are near to losing your work coverage, you will get your own special opportunity to sign up for the rest of Medicare. Save our contact information and call us then!

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Please note that the above explanation only applies to work coverage where the employer has 20+ employees and not to smaller business group plans and not to Covered California or any plan you purchased on your own. If you have group coverage through a smaller than 20 employee business, then you should get both A and B, and maybe more.

 

Also if you have COBRA or Retiree health coverage, or VA, you still probably need to get both A and B if you want to avoid any fines or late penalties. 

 

If you keep your Covered California and don't sign up for Medicare, you will be in a bad situation. First of all, you'll lose your discounted (subsidized) monthly rate with Covered California. Second of all you'll be subject to Medicare late penalties and fines.

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To sign up for Part A online, go back to the main page of the Blue Happy Face App and click on the button that says "A/B Online Easy Enroll."  The only difference to note is that you will get there instructions that say to choose part B also. But in your case you won't. 

 

A year or so from now, or whenever it is that you will be ending your work group health coverage, you can come back here and click on the following link: https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/CMS-Forms/CMS-Forms/Downloads/CMS40B-E.pdf

 

   That will take you to a PDF that you can print out form the government's site that gives you a simple paper application for adding part B and tells you to turn it in to the Local Social Security office. You will also probably need this other form that the employer has to fill in part of it. Here is the link https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/CMS-Forms/CMS-Forms/Downloads/CMS-L564E.pdf

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If you need to open this page you are on now in a computer so you can print out the forms, you can go to https://www.bluehappyface.com/working and you will get this page.

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