According to HHS, roughly 10,000 Americans age into Medicare every day, and CMS counts more than 67 million beneficiaries in the program. Most Medicare prospecting chases a moving target: people who might switch, might answer, might be shopping this week. The turning-65 group is different, because the birthday sets a clock, and you can see that clock before you ever dial.
T65 Medicare leads are people approaching or inside their Initial Enrollment Period, sorted by when that window opens and closes. This playbook covers how the window works, why timing inside it decides conversion, how to order files by birth-month cohort and county, how to pace outreach, and how T65 differs from AEP switcher files. We have supplied call centers since 2005, and this is how we would run it.
Medicare.gov describes the Initial Enrollment Period as a seven-month window around the 65th birthday. It opens three months before the birthday month, includes the birthday month, and closes three months after it, so someone with a June birthday is inside the window from March through September. Exact dates vary by person, so confirm them on Medicare.gov instead of relying on a rule of thumb.
Because birthdays are spread across the calendar, the windows overlap. In any given month, seven birth-month cohorts are inside their windows at once, each at a different stage. A person three months from the birthday and a person two months past it are both T65 leads, but they are not the same call. KFF reports that over half of eligible beneficiaries choose Medicare Advantage and that over 4 in 10 Medicare Advantage enrollees are in PPO plans, so agents working this group should look at PPO leads as well as general files.
The same person is a different prospect depending on the month you reach them. Early in the window, many people have not started thinking about Medicare, may still be on other coverage, and tend to put the decision off. Around the birthday month the decision becomes real and the questions get specific. Late in the window, a person who has not enrolled feels the deadline, but may already have heard from several agents.
We will not hand you a conversion figure for each month. It depends on your script, your carrier mix and your county, and a number we made up would mislead you. What we can say is that a call at the wrong stage wastes a live contact, and live contacts are the scarce resource. Our fresh verified files average a 42% contact rate against an 18% industry norm for recycled data, and every connection spent on someone who is not ready, or who has already enrolled, is a connection you paid for.
Order T65 data the way the window works. A file sorted by birth month lets you assign each cohort a stage and a script instead of dialing one undifferentiated list. Ask for the cohorts entering the window and the cohorts already inside it, and leave out cohorts whose window has closed, since those people belong in a different campaign. Size the order to what your floor can work, because a cohort waiting in a queue is a cohort running out of window.
County matters as much as birth month. Plans and networks are organized by county, so a lead outside the counties where you have plans to offer is a wasted dial. With 300+ custom data filters available, you can specify cohort and counties when you order instead of taking whatever is in the pool. Also check the age of the file against the person's birth month, not just the date on the invoice, because a window that closes on a fixed date punishes stale data. For the price side, see our guide to Medicare leads cost in 2026.
Treat this as a starting structure and tune it against your own dialer data. Three months before the birthday month: the window has just opened. Lead with education, ask permission to follow up, and log callbacks instead of pushing for a decision. Two and one months before: comparison shopping tends to happen here, so give these cohorts your most consistent attempts across different days and times.
Birthday month: the decision is close, so route these leads to your strongest closers or to live transfer. One and two months after: the deadline is now the message, so ask what the person has already done and help them finish. Final month: make the last attempts, then retire the record from your T65 flow. People who did enroll become candidates for your AEP campaigns later.
AEP runs October 15 to December 7, and the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period runs January 1 to March 31. Those windows run on fixed dates, so shopping is concentrated: volume and competition spike, and lead costs tend to follow. AEP switcher files target people who already have coverage and are deciding whether to change it. T65 files target people making a first choice, often with no current Medicare plan to compare against.
Three differences follow. The conversation: a switcher wants a better deal than the plan in hand, while a T65 prospect needs the process explained. The calendar: T65 volume is spread across the year because birthdays are, which evens out staffing, while AEP compresses demand into weeks. The record: a switcher file is judged on current plan and carrier, and a T65 file on birth month, county and stage. You can run both. We offer four formats: live transfer, real-time exclusive, targeted data list and aged 30-90 day, and our Medicare leads page is the place to start.
A T65 lead is a person approaching or inside the seven-month Initial Enrollment Period around the 65th birthday, sorted by birth month so you can reach them at the right stage. A switcher lead, by contrast, is someone who already has Medicare coverage and is considering a change.
The window opens three months before the birthday month, so that is the earliest sensible point for a light, educational first contact. Confirm each person's exact dates on Medicare.gov, since they vary.
Yes, and it is a sound way to even out volume across the year. Keep the files and scripts separate, because a T65 prospect is making a first choice and an AEP prospect is comparing against a current plan.
If you want T65 files cut by birth month and county, tell us your carriers, counties and daily call capacity on our contact page and we will build the order with you.