How to learn more about the changes in your 2012 Medicare Part D plan.

If you are wondering how you can ever learn about how your Medicare Part D plan is changing on 2012 - no problem - your Medicare Part D plan provider is required to summarize any 2012 Medicare plan changes in your Annual Notice of Change letter (or ANOC) that you should have received in late-September.

Although it is only early-October, we have already heard from some concerned people who had not received this important ANOC letter - and so they have yet to learn about their 2012 Medicare plan changes.

If you still have not received a copy of your plan’s ANOC letter or you think that you may have thrown the letter away by mistake, please be sure to call your Medicare plan’s Member Services department (the toll-free number is on the back of your Member ID card) and ask your plan to send you another copy of your 2012 ANOC letter.

Is it easy to overlook your ANOC letter by mistake? Not really.

Your ANOC letter should arrive in a massive envelope with some printed message indicating that it is important. In some cases, the ANOC letter and accompanying documents may even arrive in two or three separate envelopes (marked "1 of 2" or "1 of 3") because the documents are so thick.

Please note that the information you receive in your ANOC letter may at first seem a little overwhelming. Your ANOC letter alone is probably around 10 pages long, plus in this same mailing is your Medicare plan’s 2012 Evidence of Coverage (or EOC) document, making your ANOC letter look as if it is well over 100 pages long. Some plans may even break the ANOC letter mailings into several pieces (for instance, the mailing might be marked “Part 1 of 2”). Together, the ANOC letter and the EOC document will provide you with a great deal of detailed information on your 2012 Medicare plan coverage.

Would you like to learn more about your Annual Notice of Change or ANOC letter? You can click here and send us your question on this site

We also have several online-tools that can help you learn more about your 2012 Medicare Part D plan changes, such as our 2011/2012 PDP-Compare tool that you can find here (with Florida chosen as the example state) on this site

If you would like to browse all available 2012 Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, you can click here for our Medicare Part D prescription drug plan finder or PDP-Finder (with Pennsylvania chosen as the example state) on this site

If you would like to browse all available 2012 Medicare Advantage plans (with and without prescription coverage), you can click here to find our Medicare Advantage plan finder or MA-Finder (with Zip Code 11206, Kings County New York chosen as the example service area) on this site;