Pat and Jim -

Based on what I recall from my experience, Medicare kicks in two years from the date of disability, unless the date of disability predates the time the application is first opened by more than one year, in which case the two year period begins to run one year before the application is first commenced.

And for those filing online - which although time consuming is the best way of getting all of your information before the the examiners in your state who are assigned by federal law to review the application and make the initial determination of disability without it being filtered by whomever at the local SSA field office is conducting your interview - the time begins to run the moment you open the application, which you then have 180 days to complete, along with the lengthy questionnaires that are part of the process.

In my case, the guy who interviewed me at the SSA, once I submitted my online application and supporting questionnaires and then showed up to deliver all of the documentation in my possession, including my tax returns, took one look at the documentation and told me that not only had it clearly established my disability on the last day I had worked (many years earlier) but then and there entered that information into SSA's system, so the years in which I hadn't been working wouldn't be counted against me when it came time for me to seek SSI, disabled or not!

If my waiting so long seems strange, please understand that I had a private disability policy that I had purchased on my own, many years earlier, so there was no issues of ERISA pre-emption, etc. Moreover, the standards under which I would receive payments were based solely upon my ability to perform my stated occupation at the time I purchased the policy. This at a time when the last administration was taking an unreasonably hard line on all SSD applications - you lost if anywhere in the U.S. there was any possible job you could do you could do even if no openings for the position were available - that it didn't seem worth the candle to go through the stress of the process. And no one seemed to qualify without going through at least one appeal, sometimes many more.

By the time I filed, a new administration was in office, which took the position that if the record clearly showed I had CRPS, all that was required was a showing that it significantly hindered my ability to work or words to that effect.

So as it turned out, I wound up getting Medicare twelve months after I filed, or six weeks after I found out that I had been accepted on my first try. All thanks to my treating physicians and their meticulous records!

Mike