It’s open enrollment time for Medicare! Have you reviewed your drug coverage plan to make sure it is still the best one for your needs? December 7th is the deadline for making changes.

Basically, private insurers make Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage available to those eligible for original Medicare. There are many different types of plans available. The plan you choose determines the cost of your premium and out-of-pocket expenses for prescription drugs. It also determines which drugs are covered and how much they’ll cost you.

One study found that “the majority of seniors were not well-informed about drug plans, were satisfied with the plan they had chosen, and did not seek personalized comparative information during open enrollment. Medicare offered personalized information via its help-line and website, but assistance from private sources was limited. Additional efforts to distribute simple, personalized drug plan information would lead to significant reductions in Medicare beneficiaries’ costs.” In other words, if you don’t really understand your Medicare Drug Coverage Plan, you could be paying more than you need to for a plan that doesn’t cover all of the specific medications that you need, or might need.

My mom shares her experiences choosing a Part D supplement—

“You will get all kinds of literature in the mail from different insurance companies. It’s really a hard job trying to decide which one to go with. I got lucky, and a friend of mine who was a social worker connected me with the insurance representative for the older people where she works. A lot of people wouldn’t take out the Part D because they didn’t take much medicine, but she advised me to go ahead and take it out, because as you age, you’re going to need more medicine. You never know, and medicine is very expensive. If you don’t take it out when you are first eligible you might end up paying a monthly penalty when you finally do. Finding a trusted insurance representative was the key to finding the right Part D care for me. She came to my house and really took time to help me figure out which plan was best for me and explained why.”

Currently, there is also a Medicare coverage gap to take into consideration. Part D coverage will pay up to a certain amount in a year’s time—you are personally responsible for any remaining costs that year. There is reform legislation in place that will begin to reduce the amount you are responsible for, covering the gap more each year through 2020.

A Side Note about Shingles

As a side note, most Medicare Part D plans cover all commercially available vaccines—including the shingles vaccine. If I may digress for a moment, I would like to put in a plug for the shingles vaccine. As someone who was unlucky enough to suffer from shingles at the young age of 35, I highly recommend the vaccination for our senior community. Most people don’t get shingles until a later age – I was just an exception to the rule. But after going through the pain and temporary disfiguration of what was actually a mild case of shingles, I insisted that my mother get the vaccine. She lives with Fibromyalgia and I just couldn’t bear the thought of her going through shingles on top of that. Of course, the vaccine is not a guarantee that you won’t get shingles. But it is supposed to make it less severe if you do contract it. And shingles can be a monster of a problem.It is important to review your coverage to see if the plan you chose covers the medications you use now and may need to use next year. Choosing a Medicare drug coverage plan can be a daunting task.

Resources Available to help with Medicare Drug Coverage Choices

Medicare.gov has an informative site that can help you wade through the choices.
General information about Medicare Drug Coverage- http://www.medicare.gov/part-d/.
Medicare Plan Finder – https://www.medicare.gov/find-a-plan/questions/home.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
You can call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227), TTY users 1-877-486-2048, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Here in North Carolina we have the Seniors’ Health Insurance Information Program (SHIIP). It is part of the division of the North Carolina Department of Insurance and assists North Carolinians with Medicare, Medicare Part D, Medicare supplements, Medicare Advantage, and long-term care insurance questions.
Call 1-855-408-1212 or visit www.ncshiip.com 

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Shingles – Best to Avoid ‘Em If You Can