How to sign up for Medicare

What is the standard procedure for an employer to request a replacement health insurance card for an employee if their current one is damaged? How does that process actually work?

Morgan Sullivan said:Thanks to you both for the input!

The only "employees" involved were us—my parents and me—depending on who was acting as the owner of the small business at any given time.
They’ve both been retired for over a year and a half now, collecting their full benefits, and all the tax liabilities on their records have been settled. As for me, I’m not retiring, nor am I closing the business.

I could wrap my head around them asking for a year of audits, but demanding twelve years of records now? We spent a fortune paying accountants just to manage those meager monthly statements... everything was paid, and we filed every annual report right on schedule per federal law... it feels like there's no end to this.

Even in retirement, my folks can't catch a break; I suspect they'll still be digging up paperwork even after they pass away. Apparently, the law requires these documents to be kept "permanently." I actually received a notice from Medicare & Medicaid Services regarding this.

But "permanently" doesn't exist in the physical universe—how can anyone draft a law that defies the laws of physics?

Thanks again for the help. I'm curious if anyone else has ever had to justify twelve years of history. I was talking to a client from Germany today, and he mentioned they audited ten years of his business; they had to prep all the files, and an official actually came to his house for three straight days to review everything in person. Has anyone else dealt with something like that?

Hey, just reach out to Medicare. Talk to the specific person who sent the notice and explain the situation to them just like you did to us.

Regarding that twelve-year justification thing... let me tell you about my experience. Back in 2011, I took on a new client, and just a few months later, boom—the exact same kind of notice from Medicare covering 1993 through 2010. Man... I thought there was no way even one year could be off, but seriously, something was missing every single year, and the data just wouldn't match up. The lady who handled their bookkeeping back then didn't have enough billable hours left to fix it all. We worked it out, and I managed to resolve it, but the lady at Medicare was actually a huge help. For instance, for 1993, I couldn't find anything on how payroll was even calculated, and I wasn't even out of high school back then.

ruggedlynx63 said:Nope, you don't have to. You can register the business with Medicare & Medicaid Services just to get a registration number on file, but if you aren't hiring anyone, it’s totally optional... Once you finally bring on your first employee, that's when you handle the filings for both the business and the worker at the same time...

Hey, I could use some help here... how do you go about registering with the IRS and Medicare for a joint partnership? It's two owners, so which forms am I supposed to be using? Thanks.

Brandon Walker6 said:Hey, I could use some help here... how do you go about registering with the IRS and Medicare for a joint partnership? It's two owners, so which forms am I supposed to be using? Thanks.

http://irs.gov/forms/business-registration-guide.pdf

Everything you need is laid out in detail right here.

Brenda Chase3 said:http://irs.gov/forms/business-registration-guide.pdf

Everything you need is laid out in detail right here.

Thanks, yeah, I get that, but... I don't know, it’s just confusing. Since there are two owners, do we actually have to file separate M-11 and M-1 paperwork for each person? Like, does the IRS expect us to act like we're both opening totally separate businesses or something?!

Brandon Walker6 said:Thanks, yeah, I get that, but... I don't know, it’s just confusing. Since there are two owners, do we actually have to file separate M-11 and M-1 paperwork for each person? Like, does the IRS expect us to act like we're both opening totally separate businesses or something?!

You’ll definitely need an M-11 for each person, since those are individual filings.
Regarding the M-11, I'm actually not entirely certain—I'm leaning toward thinking you only need one because it's technically just one single business entity. Honestly, your best bet would be to give the Social Security Administration a quick call. They'll have the definitive answer, and since this specific scenario doesn't pop up on the forums very often, it's better to hear it straight from the source. If I were in your shoes and had to handle this right now, I'd definitely call them to be safe.

boldlynx13 said:Greetings, everyone. I am seeking some guidance or perhaps a bit of advice regarding a situation at my new workplace. While processing a termination for one of our employees, I noticed a discrepancy: several staff members—some who have been with us for over 15 years—are still officially registered as working 7-hour shifts. In reality, they haven't worked 7-hour days for quite some time, yet their records were never updated to the standard 8-hour workday. When the company was first established, the initial filing specified a 42-hour workweek, which was later adjusted to a 40-hour week for the firm as a whole, but it appears this update was never applied to each individual employee's file. I suppose I am wondering if this needs to be corrected for every single person individually. If such updates are necessary, would backdating these changes pose any significant issues, and is there a realistic possibility of facing fines from the Department of Labor for doing so? I wasn't handling these specific administrative duties back when the legal transition from 42 to 40 hours occurred, though I don't recall whether employers were required to perform a collective update for every worker during that shift. Furthermore, I am curious about which specific changes must be reported to Medicare during an ongoing employment period. For instance, should I be reporting updates to educational credentials or changes in job titles? Thank you very much for your assistance.

How did you guys handle this?

I have a bit of a question here. What exactly does it imply if I hold an associate degree, yet my employment application lists that same level of education as my qualification, while under the section "required educational attainment for duties," it specifies a high school diploma? In other words, if this discrepancy isn't corrected, what kind of long-term implications am I looking at as an employee?
thanks.

Does anyone happen to know what the actual requirements are for de-registering a seasonal business? I’m assuming it’s just the standard forms—the T-1 for Medicare and the M2P for the National Weather Service. I actually called the local field office earlier, and the woman there started listing out miles of paperwork, but she probably misunderstood my situation. I’m not shutting down the entire company permanently; I’m just pausing operations because the season is over.
The problem is, I can't find any mention of "temporary suspension" anywhere on the official websites regarding Medicare or the National Weather Service.

Yeah, just the standard printouts, M2P and T1

Thanks.
At least they've stopped calling me altogether now, so I can finally stop worrying about my phone ringing. 😁

An employee just updated their home address. Do I need to file an M-3P form through Social Security, and should I also report the change to Medicare?

The employee changed their home address. Do I need to file an eM-3P form through Social Security, and should I also update their info with Medicare & Medicaid Services?

mellowtrucker14 said:The employee changed their home address. Do I need to file an eM-3P form through Social Security, and should I also update their info with Medicare & Medicaid Services?

You don't need to worry about Social Security since they don't require an address at the time of registration. However, you definitely should update Medicare. If you're using the online portal, you can actually handle that change right there—there's a specific section dedicated to updates.

Brenda Chase3 said:You don't need to worry about Social Security since they don't require an address at the time of registration. However, you definitely should update Medicare. If you're using the online portal, you can actually handle that change right there—there's a specific section dedicated to updates.

Thanks, Brenda Chase3!
We just submitted the request to update our personal details...👋

Brenda Chase3 said:You don't need to worry about Social Security since they don't require an address at the time of registration. However, you definitely should update Medicare. If you're using the online portal, you can actually handle that change right there—there's a specific section dedicated to updates.

I updated an employee's info about a month ago, and now that I'm back from vacation, I'm trying to pull a confirmation certificate. It’s just not working. No matter what I try, I get zero results. I wonder if it matters that this person has been registered with Social Security and Medicare for ages... maybe the system isn't "seeing" the update because of how long they've been on the books? Or something else entirely...

Richard Howard55, if there’s been an electronic update to the status, you really ought to be able to see it on your end. Did you happen to click that little icon to expand all the records—the one that pulls up every single filing ever submitted? I assume you did... But perhaps try filtering the list to show only the unsigned or rejected entries instead. It’s possible something just got tucked away somewhere by mistake...

frozenangler12 said:Richard Howard55, if there’s been an electronic update to the status, you really ought to be able to see it on your end. Did you happen to click that little icon to expand all the records—the one that pulls up every single filing ever submitted? I assume you did... But perhaps try filtering the list to show only the unsigned or rejected entries instead. It’s possible something just got tucked away somewhere by mistake...

Thanks a ton for the help, but when you're dealing with someone like me, well... 🤦

I guess I didn't make it clear enough that I was only submitting the update through the Medicare portal, since it was just an employee's home address change.
I was actually kind of surprised that the system automatically suggested the new residential address without me having to type a thing.
The screen said: "Request successfully submitted," followed by the request number, the type of request, and the employee's full name.
So, after your reply, I went back to check the filing history, but nothing showed up.
Then I realized—maybe because I shouldn't have set a specific start date in the search filter. Once I cleared that, a newspaper entry popped up—specifically "-1"—with a little "x" marked in the box: "Filing" instead of "Change." All the data refers to the "historical" filing from February 4, 2013, but the address itself is the new one (the whole reason I was doing this).
Is that... I don't know, "correctly handled" on my end?

Richard Howard55 said:Thanks a ton for the help, but when you're dealing with someone like me, well... 🤦

I guess I didn't make it clear enough that I was only submitting the update through the Medicare portal, since it was just an employee's home address change.
I was actually kind of surprised that the system automatically suggested the new residential address without me having to type a thing.
The screen said: "Request successfully submitted," followed by the request number, the type of request, and the employee's full name.
So, after your reply, I went back to check the filing history, but nothing showed up.
Then I realized—maybe because I shouldn't have set a specific start date in the search filter. Once I cleared that, a newspaper entry popped up—specifically "-1"—with a little "x" marked in the box: "Filing" instead of "Change." All the data refers to the "historical" filing from February 4, 2013, but the address itself is the new one (the whole reason I was doing this).
Is that... I don't know, "correctly handled" on my end?

That sounds fine. I had the exact same experience; all updates show up under "Enrollment," and there isn't a specific separate tab labeled "Change." So, as long as the information is correct now, you're good to go.

Brenda Chase3 said:That sounds fine. I had the exact same experience; all updates show up under "Enrollment," and there isn't a specific separate tab labeled "Change." So, as long as the information is correct now, you're good to go.

Thanks a ton! 🙂