In recent months, Medicare beneficiaries (or those becoming eligible for Medicare) have reported difficulties in contacting the Social Security Administration (SSA) in order to submit enrollment or disenrollment requests for Part Aor B.
In response to these problems, earlier this week, SSA posted an Emergency Message (available here).
In short, effective April 1, 2022, individuals who were “unable to enroll due to SSA’s telephone issues after January 1, 2022, will be granted additional time, through December 30, 2022, to enroll. […] Given recent technical issues, CMS is providing equitable relief to beneficiaries who could not submit premium-Part A or Part B enrollment or disenrollment requests timely. This relief applies to the 2022 General Enrollment Period (GEP), Initial Enrollment Period (IEP), and Special Enrollment Period (SEP).”
Note that the www.medicare.gov website has also been updated to reflect this change here.