Yes, in certain situations. People under 65 can qualify for Medicare if they have received Social Security Disability Insurance for 24 months, have ALS, or have been diagnosed with End-Stage Renal Disease.
Medicare isn't just for people turning 65. There are three situations where you can qualify earlier than that. The most common is disability. If you've been receiving Social Security Disability Insurance, commonly called SSDI, for 24 consecutive months, Medicare coverage kicks in automatically at the start of your 25th month. That two-year waiting period is one of the harder parts of the disability system, since it leaves a gap that many people fill with Medicaid or marketplace insurance in the meantime. The second situation is ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. If you're diagnosed with ALS, Medicare coverage begins the same month your SSDI payments start. There's no two-year wait. The third situation is End-Stage Renal Disease, meaning permanent kidney failure that requires dialysis or a transplant. In that case, you can apply for Medicare directly, and coverage typically begins after a short waiting period that depends on whether you're on dialysis or have had a transplant. Outside of these three situations, there's no general early enrollment option. If you're under 65 and don't fit one of these categories, Medicare isn't available to you yet. It's worth checking with a local Medicare counselor if you're unsure which path applies to your situation.
Utah's SHIP program, run through the Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRC), offers free one-on-one counseling and can help you understand your options if you qualify for Medicare before 65.
For you, this means if you or a family member is under 65 and dealing with a long-term disability, kidney failure, or ALS, Medicare may already be available, and it's worth looking into sooner rather than later.
Our Commitment to Reliable Medicare Information
At Resting Sycamore Advisors, we work to provide accurate, current, and trustworthy information about Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D, and Special Needs Plans.
To do that, we use data published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which is the official source for Medicare plan and enrollment information.
Our Medicare plan pages and comparison tools are powered by CMS datasets, including:
When possible, we link to the original CMS resources so you can review the source material directly.
We follow the CMS release schedule and update our website as new data becomes available.
We load new plan year Landscape and PBP files before the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period (October 15 through December 7). We also monitor CMS.gov for updates or revisions and refresh our content when needed.
We update enrollment and performance data as CMS publishes revised files, which are typically released monthly or quarterly.
We routinely monitor CMS announcements for corrections, reissued files, or other changes and update our pages accordingly.
Each plan page includes a Last Accessed date so visitors can see when the source information was most recently reviewed.
CMS data can be difficult to read in raw form. To make it easier to use, we format and organize the data for clarity.
This includes:
All data values come from CMS. We do not change the underlying values beyond formatting, organization, and presentation.
We keep internal records of the CMS dataset versions used on our site.
If CMS issues corrected or revised files, we update our website to reflect the latest available version.
Please keep the following in mind:
For personalized Medicare assistance, please use these official resources: