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A birthday is not the only event that tells this guy that he's getting older

Subhead
For What It's Worth
Lead Summary
By
Rick Peterson, general manager

I am learning that as you get older it’s not just your birthday that tells you and others that you’re getting older.
While my birthday is down the road a bit and Mary’s is just around the corner, it seems the signs of our advancing ages are popping up all too often.
Our middle child is turning 40 this month, and our oldest grandson is graduating from high school this year.
After months of Joe Namath, Jimmy Walker, Nature Boy Rick Flare and countless other over-the-hill sports and television celebrities pimping Medicare enrollment, Mary and I started the Medicare enrollment process.
What little we knew about the Medicare enrollment process is that you have a six-month window to enroll – three  months before and three months after your 65th birthday.
My advice, just from personal experience, is to start the process on the 90th day before you turn 65.
As you will learn, and what many of you already know, is that the enrollment process doesn’t happen overnight. It almost takes that long for someone to answer the Medicare hotline.
After someone in the know told me to do so, our first call was to 1-800-MEDICARE. I know if you count the letters like I did, you’ll realize that there are too many letters for a phone number. The number is really 1-800-MEDICAR – you’re left with an extra E.
This is where the first hiccup happened. After what not only seemed like a long time — and it actually was — someone from the MEDICARE hotline answered. The person on the other end of the line didn’t sound like she was from the Midwest.
Imagine my demeaner after finally getting through, and mind you we had our ducks in a row. In my best Minnesota Nice voice, I told the person on the other end that we would like to enroll in Medicare.
While I was prepared for whatever information they might need, she did throw me a curve when she said we needed to call the Social Security Office to do that.
I told her we didn’t want to sign up for Social Security; we want to enroll in Medicare. Back and forth that conversation went, and finally she gave me the number to call Social Security and hung up.
We started the enrollment process shortly after supper, so by the time the Medicare hotline lady passed us off to the Social Security hotline number, it was nearing 7:30.
It was 8:40 when Zane answered the Social Security phone. As it turns out, Zane was officed in California and was easy to understand and helpful.
Just to move this along, after two phone calls and over an hour and a half of time on the phone, we were not yet enrolled in Medicare.
What Zane did do for us, however, was to set up a phone appointment two weeks from now with the Sioux Falls Social Security office to enroll in Medicare.
I know you’re probably saying to yourself, “Why didn’t they just go online to enroll?”
My nicest Minnesota Nice response to your more-than-fair question is, “We TRIED enrolling online.”
That is another column all to itself.
Stay tuned.

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