One important thing about Medicare is that they will always send you important communications via mail. This is why it could be stressful if you ever need to change your address while you are on Medicare, the health care program for US adults over the age of 65 and some disabled people. Luckily the process of changing your address with Medicare is pretty dang easy, and you can do it one of several ways.
Go Through Social Security
Medicare is connected to the social security agency, so you need to get your change of address with Medicare through social security. Luckily, there are several ways to contact them and make sure they have your most recent contact information.
First of all, you can call them. They are available to chat Monday through Friday from 7am to 7pm. The number to call to speak to a representative is 1-800-772-1213. If you are hard of hearing and use TTY, use the number 1-800-325-0778. They do recommend calling after Tuesday because the lines tend to be busier earlier in the week.
You can also contact them online. Manage your social security account by creating an online account. There you can do things like order a new card, update your address, see an overview of your benefits and more. It’s an important account to have and you won’t have to sit on hold with a representative for a long time.
Finally, you can even visit your local social security office to make sure that everything gets taken care of. The representatives are happy to help you. You may have to wait for a while in person and it is recommended to get there as soon as they open for the day to minimize your waiting time.
Some people have Medicare through the Railroad Retirement Board. If that is your situation, then you can either find your local office and make an appearance, or call 1-877-772-5772.
What Happens Next
Once you have reported your change of address, it will be fully in the system after 1-2 weeks. Then you should expect to receive all of your Medicare related mail to this new address. You won’t have to worry about missing any piece of mail that will be essential to your health care. As you can see, it’s really easy to set up your change of address. Once you do change you address you may notice your documents from social security or the IRS still have your old address. In this case, you should also update your address with the IRS.
One way to make sure you don’t miss any mail in the interim time from when you change your address to when it takes effect in the system is to change your address with the post office. This will forward any mail erroneously sent to the previous address to your current one. It will give you some peace of mind that you will not be missing anything important about your healthcare in your mailbox.