Helping a Parent Start Medicare: Your Role, Their Choices, the Papers

You can sit beside your parent, gather papers and join calls with their permission, but every Medicare choice stays theirs. Start during their 7-month Initial Enrollment Period, which begins 3 months before the month they turn 65.

Key takeaways

• Your parent's Initial Enrollment Period lasts 7 months around the month they turn 65.
• You can help with lists, papers, Plan Finder and phone calls.
• Your parent decides on their coverage, their plan and what you may see.
• Medicare and Social Security need your parent's permission before they talk with you.
• Medicare won't call your parent out of the blue to ask for their Medicare number.

When should your parent start Medicare?

Most people sign up during the Initial Enrollment Period. It lasts 7 months: the 3 months before, the month of, and the 3 months after the 65th birthday month.

If your parent already gets Social Security benefits, they are usually enrolled in Parts A and B automatically. Their Medicare card comes in the mail. If not, they sign up with Social Security online at ssa.gov, by phone, or at an office.

If your parent or their spouse has group health coverage from a current job, they can usually delay Part B without a penalty. They then have 8 months after the job or the coverage ends, whichever comes first, to sign up.

Most people pay no Part A premium because they worked 40 quarters or more. A spouse's record can count too, as our guide to Part A work credits explains.

What can you do to help?

You can do much of the legwork. Your parent stays in charge of each choice.

Here are tasks you can take on:

• Write down every doctor, prescription and pharmacy.
• Set aside a quiet hour for each step, with no rush.
• Sit beside your parent on Medicare's Plan Finder (the online tool that compares plans in their ZIP code).
• Take notes on calls, with the date and the name of the person they spoke to.
• Put the deadlines on a shared calendar.

Keep everything in one folder, paper or digital. When a letter arrives from Medicare, Social Security or a plan, add it to the folder the same day.

What stays your parent's decision?

Your parent decides between Original Medicare and a Medicare Advantage plan (a private plan that bundles Parts A and B, and often Part D). They choose which doctors matter most and which plan to join.

They also decide whether to buy Medigap (extra insurance from a private company that helps with Original Medicare's costs). Plan details and prices vary by location and company.

Your parent decides what you can see, too. Without their permission, Medicare and Social Security can't share their records with you.

If your parent can no longer make decisions, a legal paper such as a durable power of attorney may let you act for them. Medicare or Social Security may ask for a copy.

How can you join their Medicare calls?

On a call to 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227), your parent can tell the representative that you may speak with them on that call. That permission covers that one call.

For lasting access, your parent can fill out Medicare's form CMS-10106, the Authorization to Disclose Personal Health Information. It names you and says what Medicare can share, and for how long.

Social Security has its own rules. Your parent can give permission on a call, or sign form SSA-3288 so Social Security can share their information with you.

The table shows the pattern: a spoken "yes" works for one call, and a signed form works for later calls.

Which papers should you gather?

Gather these papers before your parent applies or calls:

• Their Social Security number and, once it arrives, their Medicare card.
• Proof of age, such as a birth certificate.
• Proof of U.S. citizenship or lawful residence, if Social Security asks for it.
• Every current health insurance card, including any job or union plan.
• Form CMS-L564 (the employer's proof of job-based coverage), if they are delaying Part B.
• Marriage or divorce papers, if they may use a spouse's work record.

Add their most recent tax return. Social Security uses income from about 2 years earlier to decide on IRMAA (an extra monthly charge for higher incomes) for Parts B and D.

If your parent served in the military, add their discharge papers and any VA (Department of Veterans Affairs) health care card.

What health details belong on the list?

List every prescription with the dose and how often your parent takes it. Add the pharmacy they use.

List every doctor and specialist, with phone numbers. Mark the ones your parent would not want to give up.

Plan Finder uses these lists. It shows each plan's yearly drug cost estimate and whether a doctor is in a plan's network. A call to the doctor's office can confirm the network too.

Part D drug costs have a yearly out-of-pocket cap: $2,100 in 2026 and $2,400 in 2027. Medicare sets the cap each year.

How do you spot Medicare scam calls?

Medicare won't call your parent out of the blue to ask for their Medicare number. A caller who pushes them to decide on the spot is a warning sign.

Go over the signs of Medicare scam calls with your parent before enrollment starts.

Treat the Medicare number like a credit card number. Your parent can share it with doctors, pharmacies and plans they chose. If a call feels wrong, they can hang up and call 1-800-MEDICARE.

What if your parent misses a deadline?

Without job-based coverage, your parent can sign up during the General Enrollment Period, January 1 to March 31. Coverage starts the first day of the month after they sign up.

The Part B late enrollment penalty adds 10% to the premium for each full 12-month period without Part B. As an example, 10% of the 2026 standard Part B premium of $202.90 is about $20 a month; the real amount depends on each year's premium.

That penalty lasts as long as they have Part B.

Part D has its own penalty: 1% of the national base premium for each full month without creditable drug coverage (drug coverage at least as good as Medicare's). As an example, 14 months with the 2026 base premium of $38.99 comes to about $5.50 a month; it is recalculated each year.

Have questions? Call 1-877-443-3251 to talk it through with a licensed insurance agent. You never pay the agent; the plans they represent do, and the decision stays yours.

We do not offer every plan available in your area. Please contact Medicare.gov or 1-800-MEDICARE to get information on all of your options. Medicare has neither reviewed nor endorsed this information.