Earlier this year, my husband applied for Medicare Part B. He contacted Social Security, and was sent an application to fill out and return. He filled out, and mailed, that application in March. Yesterday, he got a letter that said he had missed the deadline for this year. Obviously, something was wrong!
Most of the time, people who are eligible for Medicare receive Part A and Part B at the same time. To make a long story short, that is not how things happened for my husband. He is not age 65 or older, but is receiving Medicare because he is legally blind. This disability qualifies him for Medicare. For whatever reason, he received Medicare Part A, but was not getting Part B.
Medicare Part A covers hospital visits. It is Medicare Part B that covers things like doctor’s visits. I lost my job and lost my health insurance with it. This meant that my husband no longer had the type of health insurance coverage that would cover doctor’s visits. He decided to apply for Medicare Part B. It was really easy to do. Just fill out the form and mail it back before March 31, 2012. He mailed it in the first week of March.
Yesterday, he got a letter from Social Security. It was not good news. It said:
“We are writing about your application for Medicare medical insurance. You cannot sign up for medical insurance this time. You can sign up for medical insurance during January through March each year”.
This was confusing, because he did exactly that. He sent the application in the first week of March of this year. Yet, somehow, it appeared that Social Security was unaware of this fact.
So, my husband called Social Security. He asked the representative if he knew when Social Security received his application, and pointed out that he knew he mailed it to them in the first week of March. He also asked the representative to confirm that the enrollment period deadline was March 31, 2012.
The representative confirmed that my husband did, in fact, have until March 31, 2012, to apply for Medicare Part B. He looked in their system to see when my husband’s application had been received. This took a long time. Eventually, the Representative said that my husband’s application wasn’t processed until the end of April.
So, even though my husband did everything right, he is being denied Medicare Part B because the people at Social Security couldn’t be bothered to process his application until after the deadline had passed. The phone representative called the office that received his application, and told my husband that someone from there should contact him. If no one contacts him, then he is to call Social Security back in 30 days. Meanwhile, he is going without the insurance coverage that he qualifies for.
Image by Steve Hodgson on Flickr