Easy Way to Apply for Medicare Only

Medicare has very recently redesigned its website www.medicare.gov and one thing you can now do from there is to actually sign up for Medicare. If you click on
Apply Online For Medicare Now, you will automatically be transferred to the Social Security Administration website, and generally you can just go ahead and use this to sign up for Medicare if:

You are within 4 months of being age 65 or older.
(That is, you are at least age 64 and 8 months.)
You currently have NO Medicare benefits.
You DON’T want to start your Social Security retirement benefits at this time.

And in most cases you will NOT have to either visit a Social Security Office or supply documents to the Social Security Administration.

I used this facility just before I became 65 when you had to enter it directly from the SSA website, and it worked great – my red, white and blue Medicare card showed up in the mail in just a couple of weeks without any further ado on my part. I would be interested in getting feedback from people who try this new portal.