Helping a parent with all of this

The short version

There is no single permission that covers all of this. You need four separate authorizations, held by four different organizations, and the paperwork you probably already have — a healthcare power of attorney — does not by itself get you any of them.

The good news: if your parent can still sign their name, all four are straightforward and most can be done in an afternoon. The one that takes longest is the Medicare one, so do that first.

Does a power of attorney let me call Medicare?

Not on its own, no — and this catches almost everybody, because it sounds like exactly the thing a power of attorney should do.

A healthcare power of attorney is a state document about medical decisions. It says who decides about treatment. It is not an authorization on file with Medicare, and the person answering at 1-800-MEDICARE has no way to see it and will not take your word for it.

But do not go and hire a lawyer over this. The power of attorney is not useless here — it is the thing that lets you sign the Medicare form on your parent’s behalf if they cannot sign it themselves. You attach a copy to the form. If your parent can still sign, you do not need it at all for this purpose; they sign, and you are done in one step.

Three documents, three different jobs:

• Healthcare power of attorney — medical decisions. Does not give you administrative access.
• Durable or financial power of attorney — the paperwork you attach when signing forms for someone who cannot sign.
• Appointment of Representative — the only thing that lets you file and argue an appeal with a plan.

And a fourth that trips people up: being your parent’s Social Security representative payee is separate again, and does not give you Medicare access either.

The four authorizations

1. To talk to Medicare itself

Form CMS-10106, the “1-800-MEDICARE Authorization to Disclose Personal Health Information.” This is what lets a Medicare representative discuss your parent’s Original Medicare claims, coverage and bills with you.

• Your parent can choose to authorize you indefinitely or only for a set period. Choose indefinitely unless there is a reason not to.
• Submit it online through your parent’s secure Medicare.gov account. CMS itself flags this as the faster route. Mailing it works but takes considerably longer, and there is no published processing time either way.
• If your parent cannot sign, you sign as their personal representative, tick that box, and attach the power of attorney.
• Download CMS-10106

Do this one first. It is the only one where you may be waiting on the mail.

2. To act for them with their plan

If your parent has Medicare Advantage or a Part D drug plan, the plan is a separate organization from Medicare and needs its own permission. For anything that is an appeal, the form is CMS-1696, Appointment of Representative.

• It is valid for one year from the date both of you sign it. But once it has been filed with an appeal, it stays valid for the whole of that appeal — families often panic about this unnecessarily when the year rolls over mid-case.
• Many plans have their own version. Use the CMS-1696 anyway — it is accepted everywhere, and a plan’s own form is not accepted by anyone else.
• If something is missing, the appointment can be fixed rather than restarted, and the clock pauses while you fix it — but until it is fixed, you cannot act.
• Download CMS-1696

For routine questions that are not an appeal, most plans will also let your parent add you as an authorized contact with a phone call. Do both.

3. At each doctor’s office

A HIPAA authorization. There is no national form and no form number — every practice uses its own, and it takes two minutes at the front desk.

The part people miss: it only covers that one practice. Signing one at the rheumatology office does nothing at the infusion center, the lab, or the hospital. Sign one at every place your parent gets care, and sign a new one if the practice changes its computer system or patient portal.

4. At the specialty pharmacy

Call the specialty pharmacy and ask to be added as an authorized contact on the account. Each pharmacy has its own form. This is the one that lets you handle refills, delivery scheduling and prior authorization calls — which in practice is most of the phone time.

What to write down before you start calling

Every organization will ask for some subset of this, and hunting for it mid-call is where the afternoon goes. One sheet of paper, kept where you can both find it:

• Full legal name, date of birth, and address as it appears on the Medicare card
• Medicare number from the red, white and blue card
• Plan name and member ID for the Medicare Advantage or Part D plan, and the phone number on the back of that card
• Medigap company and policy number, if there is one
• Medication name, dose, and how it is given — infusion, office injection, or self-injection at home. This one determines almost everything else.
• The date the current approval expires. Ask the office; it is rarely volunteered, and it is the thing that causes a January crisis.
• Where the infusion happens, and whether it is billed as a hospital outpatient department or a doctor’s office
• The specialty pharmacy’s name and account number
• The name of the billing company on the statements — it is often a vendor nobody recognizes, and knowing it saves an argument

Keep a running log of every call: date, who you spoke to, and any reference number they gave you. A reference number is the difference between “we have no record of that” and a resolved problem.

What arrives in the mail, and what to do with it

A parent on a biologic gets a lot of official-looking envelopes in a year. Most are not bills. Two of them are urgent.

When a parent’s spouse dies

Several things change at once, in the worst possible month, and there are deadlines attached to some of them. This is the checklist nobody hands you.

• Their Medicare premium may go up sharply, for no reason they did anything about. The higher-income surcharge uses income thresholds for a married couple that are double those for one person. A survivor whose household income barely changes can jump several tiers purely because the tax filing status changed — while also losing one Social Security check.
• There is a form for that. Death of a spouse is one of eight recognized life-changing events on form SSA-44, which asks Social Security to use current income instead of the two-year-old tax return. You need a death certificate and an estimate of this year’s income. File it as soon as the income change is known — do not wait for the bill. Download SSA-44
• They may now qualify for help they did not qualify for before — and this is the one most often missed. Extra Help and the Medicare Savings Programs are assessed on household size. A survivor is now a one-person household with one fewer income. Many people become eligible the month their spouse dies and never apply because they were told no as a couple years earlier. Re-check both programs.
• There is a window to change drug plans. Gaining or losing Extra Help or Medicaid opens a special enrollment period of three months.
• Medigap is the hard one. Losing a spouse is not on the federal list of situations where a company must sell you a supplement policy. A survivor applying fresh can be medically underwritten and turned down — and someone on a biologic is exactly who gets turned down. But there is an important exception: if they had coverage through the deceased spouse’s retiree or employer plan and that coverage is now ending, that does give a guaranteed right to buy, and it is time-limited. Act on it immediately rather than assuming they are stuck. Washington State is more generous than federal law here and allows switching supplement policies year-round without health questions.
• The Medigap premium may also rise because many insurers give a household discount that the survivor loses.

A free counselor will go through all of this with you and is used to doing it for families rather than the patient. That is the call to make first.

Free help, for you as well as for them

• Washington: SHIBA — insurance.wa.gov/shiba or 1-800-562-6900
• Any other state: SHIP — shiphelp.org. Find the program in your parent’s state, not yours.
• Medicare — 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227), any hour
• Social Security — 1-800-772-1213, for Extra Help and the SSA-44

Related

• Help paying for your medication — which program covers which kind of drug
• Why your medicine needs permission first
• Medicare and your medication — what it costs under each kind of Medicare

Where these figures come from

1. Form CMS-10106, “1-800-MEDICARE Authorization to Disclose Personal Health Information,” revised March 2026, OMB No. 0938-0930. The form provides for indefinite or time-limited authorization, flags online submission through a secure Medicare.gov account as faster, and instructs a personal representative signing on someone’s behalf to attach documentation such as a power of attorney. CMS publishes no processing time for mailed forms.
2. Form CMS-1696, “Appointment of Representative,” OMB No. 0938-0950. Validity of one year from the date both parties sign; continuation for the duration of an appeal once filed; the option to use another conforming written instrument; and the process for curing a defective appointment — 42 CFR §405.910(d), (e).
3. HIPAA authorizations are governed by 45 CFR §164.508 and are specific to the entity that obtains them. There is no national form.
4. 2026 Part B standard premium of $202.90 per month, the annual deductible of $283, and the income-related monthly adjustment amount brackets, in which married-filing-jointly thresholds are double the individual thresholds below the top tier — CMS, “2026 Medicare Parts A & B Premiums and Deductibles,” November 14, 2025.
5. Death of a spouse is a qualifying life-changing event for an income-related adjustment reconsideration — Social Security Administration form SSA-44, revised December 2025, OMB No. 0960-0784; SSA Program Operations Manual System HI 01120.010.
6. Special enrollment period of three months following a gain, loss or change in Medicaid or low-income subsidy eligibility, and the monthly election available to subsidy-eligible individuals — 42 CFR §423.38(c)(9), (c)(4)(i).
7. Death of a spouse is not among the federal Medigap guaranteed issue rights; loss of an employer group health plan, including retiree coverage, that pays after Medicare is a guaranteed issue right — CMS, Choosing a Medigap Policy, Product No. 02110, revised March 2026. Washington State continuous open enrollment and community rating — RCW 48.66.045, RCW 48.66.130.
8. Medicare Advantage appeal deadline of 65 days from the date on the denial notice, being 60 days from receipt with receipt presumed five days after the notice date — 42 CFR §422.582(b), §422.584(b); CMS Parts C & D appeals guidance, §50.3.

About this page

Written and reviewed by Alison Bays, MD, MPH, board-certified rheumatologist. Figures are current for 2026 and were last checked in September 2026.

This is educational information, not advice — not medical, legal, financial or insurance advice, and not a substitute for talking to your parent’s doctor, their plan, or a benefits counselor. Nothing is sold here. No insurance is sold here, no plan is recommended, and neither this page nor its author is paid by any insurance company, plan, pharmaceutical manufacturer or broker. This page is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Medicare, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or any government agency.

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