Medicare.gov Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plan and Medicare Advantage Plan Finder Tutorial

In August 2013, CMS updated their Medicare.gov homepage with even more links to the Medicare.gov Plan Finder. The Medicare.gov site also added another search area to the search field already in the upper—right margin.
The site no longer has the "Home" link in the top margin navigation, but instead has eight new horizontal navigation categories with a number of sub—navigation choices under each of the navigation categories. Naturally, you can still reach the Medicare.gov homepage at anytime by just clicking on the "Medicare.gov" graphic in the upper —left corner.
More information on the August changes to the Medicare.gov homepage are included in our Q1Medicare News.

If you wish to see both Medicare Advantage plans (or MAs or MAPDs) and the stand-alone Medicare Part D prescription drug plans (or PDPs) that are available in your area, the Medicare.gov gives you a few opportunities to view both types of plans as you work through their Plan Finder system.
Please remember not to get the two different Medicare plans confused.

• Medicare Part D plans (sometimes called "stand-alone Medicare Part D prescription drug plans" or PDP) only provide prescription drug coverage.
• Medicare Advantage plans (or Medicare Part C plans or Medicare Health plans) provide coverage for Medicare Part A (Hospitalization, In-patient) and Medicare Part B (Physician Services and out-patient) — and may also include a prescription drug benefit (sometimes called a MA-PD) — along with other coverage benefits. At a minimum, a Medicare Advantage plan should provide coverage at least as good as your Original Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B.
• Finally, do not forget that a Medicare Advantage plan is different from a Medicare Supplement (or Medigap Policy). A Medicare Advantage plan works in place of Original Medicare Part A and Part B. A Medicare Supplement works in addition (or on top of) your Original Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B coverage.

We do not recommend entering your personal information into a public computer or when using your computer in a public space — and this is especially true when searching for your next a Medicare plan. For instance, be careful if you are using your laptop or tablet at your local coffee shop where the shop provides free wireless internet access along with your free coffee refills. Some computers and networks do not securely protect your personal information from outside parties. And you do not want to be the next victim of the identity theft business. So, if you want to enroll into a Medicare Part D or Medicare Advantage plan online through the Medicare.gov website, consider enrolling from your home computer or a computer that you know is secure. Moral: Our advice about computer security does not just apply to the Medicare.gov Plan Finder site. You should be be careful with your personal information anytime you are using a public computer or working with your computer in a public place.

Some people who are searching for just a Medicare Part D prescription drug plan are drawn to a Medicare Advantage plan that offers, not only Medicare health coverage, but also prescription drug coverage all for a $0 monthly premium. Yes, sometimes you can get something for nothing or close to nothing. But again, be sure to find out whether you are enrolled in a Medicare Supplement before considering any Medicare Advantage plan. Why is this so important? You cannot use a Medicare Supplement and a Medicare Advantage plan at the same time and your enrollment in a Medicare Advantage plan will cancel your Medicare Supplement policy. As a note, if you move from a Medicare Supplement to a Medicare Advantage plan, be sure that your current doctors and other health care providers accept your chosen Medicare Advantage plan — before you enroll.

In the previous version of the Medicare tool, one screen showed you a summary of all the information you entered up to this point - your ZIP Code or current Medicare plan or financial extra-help status. In the updated Medicare Plan Finder, the information you entered will be shown in a box on the right side of each page. There is a link in this information box under the "My Current Profile" text to return you back and allow you to edit this personal information. In our case, since we did not enter anything but our ZIP Code, we will be returned to the Medicare homepage. If you would rather not use this link or go back to the Medicare.gov homepage, you can also either use your browser back arrow or use the cookie-crumb link in the upper-left, under the top-navigation to navigate back. (This will be shown later in other examples.)

As shown in more detail below, the Medicare.gov Plan Finder automatically builds a Drug List ID (such as: 8010270304) and Password Date (such as: 07/16/2013 ) for you to return to a saved drug list. When we enter medications to begin a Medicare plan search we always copy down that rather long number and the associated date as our first step. When you return, you can navigate back to the drug entry screen and just input your Drug List ID and Password Date to retrieve your drug list.

An earlier version of the Medicare.gov Plan Finder was very time sensitive and, if you took too long, you were given the dreaded Medicare Time-Out Screen. But, thanks to a Medicare update, Medicare now lets you know that the system has been idle and you have the option to continue. So, if you take too long to enter your personal or drug information — or stop to watch a little television — or talk to your friends on the telephone — or have a snack while talking to your friends on the telephone, the Medicare Plan Finder can time—out, send you a small dialog screen, and you will need to choose the right option or you will be returned to the beginning of the Plan Finder process and re-enter all your information. Again, unless you have written down the Drug List ID / Password Date, you will also need to re-enter your medication list. Moral: Copy down your given Drug List ID and Password Date after you have completed entering all of your medications. What you do not want to see is: " Your session has timed out. Please return to the Plan Finder home page to begin a new search."

For instance, you might be an early starter and enter your medications on October 15th and find the most affordable Medicare prescription drug coverage for the next year, and join your new plan on the spot.
Then weeks later, on December 1st, you visit your doctor and are unexpectedly prescribed a new medication. No problem. Since you are in the annual Open Enrollment Period, you still have through December 7th to choose the most affordable Medicare prescription drug coverage for next year. You can just go back into your saved Drug List, add the newly prescribed medication and see if the most affordable plan is still the same as you found back on October 15th. If another Medicare plan provides more affordable coverage, you have the ability to change your plan enrollment through December 7th.
Note: If this actually occurs to you, please call Medicare at 1-800-633-4227 and get help with your last minute enrollment through a Medicare representative.

Every year is a little different with a whole new and different set of Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage plans in your area. Some years, you might find a Medicare Part D plan that separates network pharmacies into several classes that have different pricing. For instance, you may find that some Medicare Part D plans charge lower drug prices at preferred network pharmacies and higher prescription drug prices at non-preferred network pharmacies.
So, if you do not accurately select your local or usual pharmacy, your actual annual prescription costs may be significantly higher than you expected. In other words, the price at your pharmacy may not be the price you see on the Medicare.gov Plan Finder.
You can pick up to two pharmacies in this Step 3 of 4 and return back to this step to select other pharmacies. In the unlikely event that your chosen pharmacy isn’t in a Medicare plan’s pharmacy network, the drug costs you will see in the Plan Finder are the full retail price of the drugs with no insurance coverage (again with emphasis — using a non-network pharmacy usually means you will pay full retail price for your medications).

At the top of the page we see the cookie—crumb navigation that lets us return to earlier screens and change information and it probably looks like this: Home—Medicare Plan Finder—Enter Information—Enter Your Drugs—Select Your Pharmacies—Refine Your Plan Results. Each one of these phrases is a link and allows you to return to previous steps. Warning! If you jump back too far down the cookie—crumb, the information you entered will not be saved and you will need your Drug List ID and Date to recall you prescription drug list (and pharmacy list). For instance, when you click on Home, you will be out of these Plan Finder results and need to re-enter at least your ZIP Code and Drug List ID and Date to get back to this screen.

Using the filters on the left and selecting all the types of Medicare plans, we can immerse ourselves in detail. However, if we wish to narrow the details and scope of our Medicare Part D plan search we can just "un—check" the type of Medicare plans that do not interest us. For instance, if you currently have just a Medicare Part D prescription drug plan (without any additional health coverage), you may want to un—check all other Medicare plan types so that you can compare similar plans to what your current Medicare plan. Later, you can always return, "check" the Medicare Advantage plans, and examine how a Medicare Advantage plan compares to your prescription—only Medicare Part D plan.

On rare occasions, the Medicare.gov Plan Finder can produce results that just do not seem logical and you may need to question Plan Finder results that just do not make sense. For instance, when we searching for coverage of expensive medications (Vandetanib and Caprelsa®, both 300mg), one of the plans we reviewed reported that their annual mail order cost for the two medications would be $215,822.60!!! The medications do each have high retail cost of around $10,000 per fill (depending on the Medicare prescription drug plan), however, theses mail order numbers do seem high. As reference, the Plan Finder also showed that the same Medicare plan covered these medications at an annual combined cost of $14,864.54. Moral: With potential annual costs of over $200,000, we would suggest gaining a little clarification by telephoning Medicare and speaking with a Medicare representative or telephoning the Medicare plan directly and speaking with a Member Services representative for more details.