It Pays To Subscribe To Medicare Rx
By: Source: AARP.org Date Posted: 2006-02-28 12:28:45
By Mary Angell
Figuring out the new Medicare Prescription Drug Plan may seem daunting to seniors, but plan experts and seniors who have signed up for it say it's worth investigating. Help is widely available and enrolling is easy, they say. And best of all, the plan's new participants are paying a fraction of what they used to pay for prescription drugs.
"Most seniors don't want to deal with the confusion," said Joyce Corcoran, outreach coordinator at the Young at Heart Senior Center in Rock Springs. "But the people who are signing up right away are saving money."
The new Prescription Drug Plan— or Medicare Plan D, as it is also called— helps Medicare beneficiaries pay for their prescription medications. All Medicare recipients are eligible for it, regardless of income, age or current health. The benefit is offered through private insurance organizations, and in Wyoming, there are 41 different plans available. Plans vary in deductible and premium amounts as well as the drugs covered.
The Wyoming State Health Insurance Information Program and other non-profit organizations— as well as medical clinics—have overseen the training of volunteers who can help seniors sift through the various plans and make an informed decision on the right one for them.
Corcoran has been trained on Medicare Part D and has helped more than 80 seniors in her community figure it out.
"It's not that difficult to get help and not that difficult to sign up," she said. "They can go to almost any senior center and (find) volunteers ready to help (them)."
It takes about 30 minutes at the most to enroll, Corcoran said.
"I go to www.medicare.gov and put in all the medicine and information and the plans pop up that fit their situation," she said. "We print pages that compare the first three plans, and they choose what they want to do. If the first three are not what they want, I pull up the others. It's really not a difficult process. Once they get into it they say, "This is so simple—and I've been struggling with all this mail, trying to understand.'"
"Most people are saving money," she added.
Shirley and Bill Davis of Basin, for example, are paying much less for their prescriptions since they signed up for the benefit.
Shirley's medicines, which totaled $578 a month, will now cost her $195.
Of Bill's medications, one dropped in cost from $91.97 a month to $28 a month; another from $56.94 to $28 and the last from $25.21 to $5.00 a month.
"It's just unreal to us," Shirley said. "The nurse at our clinic we go to is the one who helped us. She showed me three different plans and talked to me and made recommendations. We're very happy."
"I help people make choices," said Kathy Anderson, a registered nurse at the Big Horn Clinic in Basin. "My biggest fear is that people will look at the paperwork and think they can't understand it and they don't need to sign up—but they should. They may take little medicine now, but they could have a car accident. They could get sick and need to be on a program without a penalty."
Anderson herself is benefiting from Plan D. Her husband's prescriptions will now cost the couple less than $300 this month—a big improvement over the $1,057 a month they previously paid. Her son, who suffered brain damage and a partially paralyzed left arm in a car accident, is eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare Part D. His medications total more than $10,000 a month, but with the plan, the premium and deductible are both paid for by the government, and his co-pay on medicine is $1 to $5 dollars each.
Bess Arnold, a Cheyenne senior who signed up for Plan D so recently she has yet to realize the savings, said getting information on it is easy.
"There are all kinds of resources," she said. "Walgreen's will help you with prescription drugs. There have been meetings organized by United Medical Center and AARP. You can go to www.medicare.gov, and there's a Medicare 800 number if you're not computer savvy."
Arnold used the planner on the Medicare Web site to input her prescription drug information and print out the plans that covered her medications. She compared deductibles, premiums and the cost of different drugs on different plans. Then she called the Wyoming Senior Health Insurance Information Program office in Cheyenne to enroll.
"If I figured it right, we'll be saving $1,338 a year," Arnold said. "My doctor put me on a prescription drug in September that was too expensive, so I didn't take it. I took an over-the-counter. Now I can take that."
Arnold's experience is common, volunteers said.
"One couple had a total income of $1,500 a month, which makes them (ineligible) for (financial) help," said Corcoran. "Their medications were astronomical. They had literally not been taking their medicine like they should. This is going to enable them to start.
"You make choices. I have a lot of people who do that," Anderson said. "They're not low enough income to qualify for special programs, but they don't have the income to afford their medicine. From a nursing prospective, when people can keep taking their medication, they can stay in control and don't have to come to the doctor as often. It's going to save money in the long run."
Open enrollment for Plan D began in November, and the benefits took effect Jan. 1, 2006. Medicare recipients have until May 15 to sign up for it; after that date they will have to wait until Nov. 15, 2006 to sign up and pay a penalty for late enrollment.
"I have friends who say, 'I'm not going to get that. I don't think it can help me at all,' and I say, 'You'd better look into it,'" Shirley Davis said. "They say, 'We don't have hardly any prescriptions,' and I say, 'You're lucky, but you might someday.'"
For more information:
There are many ways to get help with the 2006 Medicare Prescription Drug Plan
* Call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227). The line is staffed 24-hours a day. If you did not receive the booklet "Medicare & You 2006" or would like one mailed to you for free, call the 800 number.
* Visit www.medicare.gov or www.medicare.gov/MPDPF to go directly to the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Finder.
* Call AARP at 1-800-687-2277 for the free publication "What You Need to Know about the New Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage." You many also download a copy from www.aarp.org/medicarerx.
* Talk to your pharmacist.
* Call the Wyoming Department of Insurance at 1-800-438-5768.
* Check with your local senior citizens center for a volunteer trained in Medicare Part D.
* Call the Wyoming Senior Health Insurance Information Program at 1-800-856-4398 for information about Plan D or the name and phone number of a volunteer near you. In almost 50 communities across the state, WSHIIP has volunteers trained in Medicare Plan D who will meet with you, face-to-face, free of charge—a list of towns with a WSHIIP volunteer is listed online at www.wyomingseniors.com/wshiip.htm.
Related Articles
- Medicare Part D Fact Sheet for Wyoming
- The New Medicare Rx Coverage Explained
- What You Need to Know about the New Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage
- Choosing Rx Drugs
Other Resources
- Medicare ' s Web site
- Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Finder tool
- Wyoming Senior Health Insurance Information Program (WSHIIP)
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