Look before you leap: True cost of a Part D plan might be more than you think.
From the Center for Medicare Advocacy:
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) says that cost is one of the factors beneficiaries should consider when choosing a Medicare prescription drug plan. Yet calculating costs can be an onerous task. In fact, CMS cautions against trying to calculate the potential costs of enrollment “by hand” and recommends that beneficiaries rely on the calculations achieved through the web tools available on www.medicare.gov.
Many times the cost of a plan can be deceptive. A plan with the lowest premium is not the best option if its formulary, or covered drug list, does not include the medicines a beneficiary takes or if its network of pharmacies does not include the drug store a beneficiary uses. We know that plans can change the prices of their drugs weekly so that what appears to be the cheapest plan one week may not be the cheapest plan the next week. CMS has even suspended providing information about some plans on its prescription drug plan finder because of discrepancies in information about drug costs. We know also that, starting in March, plans will be able to remove drugs from their formularies or change their tiers or cost-sharing levels.
Even after a beneficiary does the calculations, the plan with the lowest cost on a yearly basis may still not be the best option. Plan benefit structures vary greatly. Some require beneficiaries to pay more up-front at the beginning of the year, while some require beneficiaries to pay more at the end of the year. Because most Medicare beneficiaries live on fixed incomes, they may want to consider their overall expenses and when they want to incur larger prescription drug costs. A beneficiary may be more comfortable paying a little extra for a drug plan in order to pay steady amount out-of-pocket throughout the year or at certain times of the year. The calculations can be particularly significant for beneficiaries with large drug costs who are not eligible for the low-income subsidy, or “extra help.”
Read the rest of the story at CMA.
Reminder: Avoid the calculator! It doesn’t work propertly. Your only hope is to work through the various plans by hand. Of course, the whole Part D program is set up to allow insureres to bait and switch drugs, so there is no guarantee that what you see it what you’ll get. If that makes you angry–contact your Congresspersons and demand accountability.