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When can you actually enrol?
Most Medicare mistakes are timing mistakes, and most of them are permanent. This works out your window from a birth month or a qualifying event, with the dates each one produces.
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Tool 01 · Enrollment windows
Your enrolment window
When can you actually enrol?
Pick your 65th-birthday month, or the life event that just happened.
Special Enrollment Periods differ in length. The short ones catch people out.
Educational only. Confirm your own dates with us or with Medicare before you act.
Your Initial Enrollment Period
October (previous year) to April
Enrol during October, November or December so your coverage is live on 1 January with no gap.
October (previous year)Coverage starts 1 January
November (previous year)Coverage starts 1 January
December (previous year)Coverage starts 1 January
JanuaryCoverage starts 1 February
FebruaryCoverage starts 1 March
MarchCoverage starts 1 April
AprilCoverage starts 1 May
Medigap open enrolment
January to June, six months from the month your Part B begins
Watch out
Enrolling in or after your eligibility month pushes the start date to the first of the following month, which can leave you uninsured for several weeks.
Your Special Enrollment Period
Employer coverage is ending
You or your spouse are leaving a job, or the employer plan is terminating, and you delayed Part B because you had active group coverage.
How long you get
8 months for Parts A and B, starting the month after employment or the group coverage ends, whichever comes first. Only 2 months for Medicare Advantage, and 63 days for Part D.
What it lets you do
Enrol in Part B without a late-enrolment penalty, and pick up a Part D or Medicare Advantage plan.
Watch out
The Part B window is eight months but the drug window is two. People use the long one and miss the short one, then carry a Part D penalty for life. Also: COBRA and retiree coverage are not active employer coverage for this purpose.
Return to Original Medicare from a Medicare Advantage plan
You cannot buy a Medicare Supplement with guaranteed issue during AEP. Supplements have their own rules and, outside your one-time window, underwriting applies in Florida.
2
Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment (OEP)
1 January to 31 March, every year
The first of the month after you make the change
Switch from one Medicare Advantage plan to another
Leave a Medicare Advantage plan for Original Medicare
Add a standalone Part D plan when leaving an Advantage plan
You cannot use OEP if you are on Original Medicare. It is only for people already enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, and it allows one change, not several.
3
General Enrollment Period (GEP)
1 January to 31 March, every year
The first of the month after you enrol
Enrol in Part B if you missed your Initial Enrollment Period and have no Special Enrollment Period
Enrol in premium Part A if you are not eligible for it without a premium
This is the fallback, not a plan. A Part B late-enrolment penalty of 10% for each full 12-month period you could have had Part B and did not is usually added, and it is permanent.
Late enrolment penalties. Part B late enrolment adds 10% to your premium for each full 12-month period you were eligible and not enrolled, for as long as you have Part B. Part D adds roughly 1% of the national base beneficiary premium for each month without creditable drug coverage, recalculated every year. Both are permanent, and both are avoidable.
Every Special Enrollment Period, and what each one is worth
A Special Enrollment Period is the only way to change Medicare coverage outside the fixed windows. They vary from 63 days to eight months, and the short ones are the ones people miss.
1
Employer coverage is ending
You or your spouse are leaving a job, or the employer plan is terminating, and you delayed Part B because you had active group coverage.
How long
8 months for Parts A and B, starting the month after employment or the group coverage ends, whichever comes first. Only 2 months for Medicare Advantage, and 63 days for Part D.
What it lets you do
Enrol in Part B without a late-enrolment penalty, and pick up a Part D or Medicare Advantage plan.
Watch out. The Part B window is eight months but the drug window is two. People use the long one and miss the short one, then carry a Part D penalty for life. Also: COBRA and retiree coverage are not active employer coverage for this purpose.
2
You moved permanently
A permanent change of address to a new plan service area, or back to the United States from abroad, or out of an institution.
How long
If you tell your plan before you move, the window starts the month before the move and runs 2 further months. If you tell them after, it runs the month you tell them plus 2 more.
What it lets you do
Switch Medicare Advantage or Part D plans, or return to Original Medicare and add a standalone Part D plan.
Watch out. Moving within the same service area usually does not trigger this. Crossing from Pinellas to Hillsborough generally does, because plan availability and networks are county-specific.
3
You moved into or out of a facility
Admission to or discharge from a skilled nursing facility, long-term care hospital or similar institution.
How long
For as long as you live there, and for 2 full months after you leave.
What it lets you do
Join, switch or drop a Medicare Advantage or Part D plan, more than once if needed.
Watch out. This is one of the few SEPs that can be used repeatedly while the situation lasts. Short rehab stays may not qualify; the facility type matters.
4
Medicaid or Extra Help status changed
You gained, lost or changed eligibility for Medicaid or for the Part D Low Income Subsidy, also called Extra Help.
How long
Generally one change per calendar quarter during the first three quarters of the year, with additional rights when eligibility actually changes.
What it lets you do
Change Medicare Advantage or Part D plans, including moving to a plan designed for dual-eligible members.
Watch out. The rules here have been tightened in recent years and differ for full-benefit and partial-benefit dual eligibles. Check the current position before relying on it.
5
Switching to a 5-star plan
A Medicare Advantage, Part D or Cost plan in your area holds an overall 5-star quality rating for the current plan year.
How long
8 December through 30 November of the following year. Once per year.
What it lets you do
A one-time switch into the 5-star plan.
Watch out. Five-star plans are not common and a star rating is not the same as a good fit. It is still a network and a formulary, and both still need checking.
6
Your plan is leaving or was terminated
Your Medicare Advantage or Part D plan is not renewing its contract in your area for the coming year.
How long
8 December through the last day of February, with a guaranteed-issue right to certain Medicare Supplement plans as well.
What it lets you do
Choose a new plan, or return to Original Medicare with a supplement under guaranteed issue.
Watch out. The guaranteed-issue supplement right attached to a plan termination is time-limited and easy to lose. Act in December, not in February.
7
Trial right on your first Advantage plan
You joined a Medicare Advantage plan when you first became eligible at 65, and you want out within the first twelve months.
How long
Any time within the first 12 months of that first enrolment.
What it lets you do
Return to Original Medicare with a guaranteed-issue right to a Medicare Supplement, no medical underwriting.
Watch out. This is a one-time right and it only applies to a first Advantage enrolment at initial eligibility. After twelve months, supplement carriers in Florida can underwrite you.
8
You are joining or leaving employer coverage
You are going back to work and joining a group plan, or coming off one, while already on Medicare.
How long
Generally 2 months after the month the employer coverage starts or ends.
What it lets you do
Drop or pick up Medicare Advantage or Part D as your employer cover changes.
Watch out. Get the creditable-coverage letter from the employer in writing each year. Without it, proving you had creditable drug cover later is difficult.
The penalties this is designed to avoid
Part B late enrolment adds 10% to your premium for each full 12-month period you were eligible and not enrolled, for as long as you have Part B. Part D adds roughly 1% of the national base beneficiary premium for each month without creditable drug coverage, recalculated every year. Both are permanent, and both are avoidable.
Neither penalty is a one-off fine. Both are added to your monthly premium for as long as you hold that part of Medicare, and the Part D penalty is recalculated every year against a new base premium.
Questions about enrolment timing
Your Initial Enrollment Period runs seven months: the three months before the month you turn 65, that month, and the three months after. If you were born on the first of a month, the whole window shifts a month earlier. Our enrollment calculator works out your dates and shows what each month does to your start date.
If you have active employer coverage through an employer with 20 or more employees, you can usually delay Part B without penalty and enrol later through a Special Enrollment Period. With fewer than 20 employees, Medicare generally pays first and delaying is usually a mistake. COBRA and retiree coverage do not count as active employer coverage for this purpose.
It depends on five things: how attached you are to your doctors, how much you travel, whether you prefer a low monthly cost or a low worst-case year, how you want drug cover carried, and how likely you are to want to switch later. Our decision matrix weighs all five and shows the counter-argument for whichever structure loses.
It starts the first month you are both 65 or older and enrolled in Part B, and runs six months. Inside it, supplement carriers must issue you a policy regardless of health. Outside it, in Florida, they can medically underwrite you and decline. It happens once, and it is the most consequential deadline in the whole system.
Not sure which window applies to you? Call.
Twenty minutes with someone who will ask for your doctor list before naming a plan. If the right answer is the plan you already have, that is what you will hear.
