Customer Service Social Security and Medicare for the largest cohort of baby boomers turning 65 since last year
HI Terry, I am trying to help my sister-in-law sign up for social security but her husband is still working and we need to make sure that her SS application does not automatically enroll her in Medicare and cause them to lose his private insurance access (he is currently contributing to an HSA). We tried to get an appointment for her in mid December and after waiting 3 hours and 50 minutes on the phone we were told that she would get a message from SS to make an appointment. To date this has never happened. We went the route of a phone appt because we were told that we could not get an appointment in a SS office. Now we are told that we can’t get a phone appointment.
Where are we supposed to get help? This is our critical time and when I became eligible for Medicare last summer I also experienced a lot of problems and no assistance. My friends had similar experiences and incurred costs and consequences due to this lack of help.
The US has known that a record number of people would be going on Medicare and be eligible for SS since I was born 65 years ago. How can we get timely help? It almost makes me feel that they are blowing everything up just when they knew the systems would have the highest demands on them.
I hired a fee only financial planner and she wouldn’t touch SS and Medicare. I would gladly pay someone who can help, someone who can perform the role that the SS employees used to fulfill for the other 64 years of my life.
No one deserves to go through so much disruption at such a critical juncture without any assistance or validation. My brother and sister-in-law don’t know I am writing this so I hope you don’t mind not using their names if you respond to this note. Thank you!
Terry Says
I understand your frustration, but this is something you now must do online. Read the top article on my website, and use the link to apply
Your sister’s application for Social Security has NOTHING to do with her husband — OR his insurance at work.
Are you trying to get her application done for Social Security — or Medicare, or both? If she is on his health insurance and has full coverage, she can sign up for SS without signing up for Medicare. But she should wait for SS until her full retirement age, just shy of 67.
For Medicare, there are several sources of help. The one I recommend for people in Ilinois is JTMedicareSolutions.
Call, and Thom Dillon will help her through the process of signing up for Medicare, and finding a supplement and Part D drug program.
