Tool
Your pre-Medicare timeline
Approaching 65? Enter your birthday and we'll show you the exact months when each Medicare task should happen — when your Initial Enrollment Period opens, when to pick a plan, when the window closes. No account, no email.
We use this only to do the date math. Nothing is sent to our servers.
Why these milestones matter
- Initial Enrollment Period (IEP) is the easiest path into Medicare. Miss it and you face late-enrollment penalties (10% Part B premium per 12 months without it, for life) unless you have a Special Enrollment Period from active employer coverage.
- Medigap Open Enrollment runs for 6 months from when Part B starts. This is the ONLY time you can buy any Wisconsin Medigap policy without medical underwriting (carriers can refuse or charge more for pre-existing conditions later).
- Plan effective date depends on when in the IEP you sign up. Sign up in the 3 months before your birthday → coverage starts your birthday month. Sign up later → it pushes back.
For an interactive walkthrough of each enrollment window (IEP, AEP, OEP, SEP, Medigap OE, Marketplace SEP), see the enrollment-window helper.