If you are a Medicare beneficiary, you should receive a printed version of the Medicare & You Handbook prepared by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS or Medicare) sometime in late-September or early-October.

Your printed version of the Medicare & You Handbook will contain details of the stand-alone Medicare Part D prescription drug plans and Medicare Advantage plans available in your area (that is, within your state or region for Medicare Part D plans - or within your county/ZIP for Medicare Advantage plans).

The Medicare & You Handbook is also available electronically in a PDF format and you can download it from the Medicare website or on Q1Medicare.com at: Q1Medicare.com/PartD-MedicareAndYouCMSGuideToMedicare.php.

The electronic Medicare & You Handbooks (english and spanish) contains the same general Medicare information as your printed Handbook.  However, the electronic document naturally does not include specific information on the local or regional Medicare Part D prescription drug plans or Medicare Advantage plans that are available in your area.

For reference, we also offer a Medicare & You Handbook archive with versions of the Handbook back to 2006.

A few highlights of the 2019 Medicare & You Handbook

• The "newly reinstated" Medicare Advantage plan Open Enrollment Period (OEP) begins January 1st and continued through March 31st is introduced and the Handbook describes how you can make one change to your Medicare Advantage plan during this additional enrollment period (change to another MA/MAPD plan or drop your plan and add a Medicare Part D plan). (see p.3)
  
  
• Medicare Advantage plans are not listed under the "What are the Parts of Medicare" (p.4), only Medicare Part A, Medicare Part B, and Medicare Part D are summarized with reference to where in the Handbook these topics are explained in more detail.  Medicare Advantage plans are introduced on the following pages as an option to Original Medicare.
  
  
• On page 56, the topic of "Organization determinations" is introduced.  In the 2019 draft Handbook, the term "preauthorization" was used to describe the benefits of prior authorization as a means of determining whether "an item or service will be covered by the plan."  Not surprisingly, Medicare advocates objected to CMS framing prior authorization as a benefit to the Medicare Advantage plan member.  The final 2019 Handbook provides a more balanced statement: "You (or a provider acting on your behalf) can request to see if an item or service will be covered by the plan in advance. Sometimes you must do this [prior authorization] for the service to be covered. This is called an 'organization determination.' If your plan denies coverage, the plan must tell you in writing."  As a note, the topic of "prior authorization" is also introduced on page 7 when comparing Medicare Advantage plans and Original Medicare.
  

Medicare Part D prescription drug plan (PDP) information in your area
If you would like to review the coverage details of any stand-alone Medicare Part D prescription drug plan in your area, you can use our PDP-Finder tool found here: PDP-Finder.com/FL

(This link is showing an example of Medicare Part D plans in Florida, but you can change the state to your state.)


Medicare Advantage plan (MA, MAPD, MSA, and SNP) information in your area
You can also review the details of any Medicare Advantage plan (with or without prescription drug coverage) using our MA-Finder tool.  Here is an example link of all the Medicare Advantage plans available in Miami-Dade county: 
MA-Finder.com/33142

(Again, you can change the ZIP Code to your own ZIP Code.)