You're welcome, I'm glad it's helping!Thank you for the ID card info. Your blog post on TFL and Medicare is awesome!
If you renew in Sep/Oct (before you sign up for Medicare) then there's a risk that the new retiree ID they give you will still expire in March 2026 on the front of the ID. And then you'd get a new ID all over again after you applied for Medicare.? Why wait? As soon as I heard about the new cards, I got mine so it was out of the way and not hanging over me.I knew that my card expired in March of 2026. I had planned to go to the ID office at Quantico in Sept/Oct. Now that I read your blog post, I will just wait for notification,
Signing up for Medicare on the Social Security website apparently updates DEERS as well. (It's probably automatic, and it was transparent for my Medicare signup.) Once you've applied for Medicare then you can get your new retiree ID with INDEF on the front and with an "effective date" on the back reflecting the date the ID was issued.
And yes, it's very much worth your time to mess around with a Login .gov verification and the Okta Verify app now, while you have the extra hour and the lower stress level.
Statistics: Posted by Nords — Sat Sep 06, 2025 11:01 am — Replies 23 — Views 1541