Return to Videos Once you're determined to be disabled, Medicare will go take a look at your case and determine when you're going to be eligible for Medicare. You're eligible for Medicare two years after the date that you're determined to first have been disabled. If you file a claim in 2016 and the judge goes back and says, okay January 1, 2015, I determined that you're disabled. January 1 of 2017, will be the first state of your eligibility for Medicare. During the two-year window period before that determination, you may be eligible for Medicaid but that goes state-by-state and it also has some income and asset requirements that you have to pass. But as a general rule, Medicare is available to the disabled on the anniversary of their determination that they were disabled, or if they hit the age of 65 at which point in time Medicare kicks in as a retirement part of the system.