4 Save Money on Insurance

Save Hundreds on Your Medicare Part D Drug Spending

The annual election period for Medicare Part D is quickly approaching. Are you prepared to review your prescription needs and evaluate options for savings? All too often consumers get overwhelmed and frustrated by the sheer amount of advertising and direct mail that they are bombarded with every autumn, and this leads to inaction. However, you could be missing out on hundreds of dollars of savings each year if you don’t review your drug plan choices each year.

Follow these simple tips to evaluate your drug plan, and you’ll be able to rest easy that you are getting the best deal for your money on Medicare Part D. 

Review your Annual Notice of Coverage

Every September, your Medicare Part D insurance carrier will send out a notice to you. This is called your Annual Notice of Change document, or ANOC letter. Usually the letter is accompanied by a formulary list or other coverage booklet, so the
packet ends up looking like a doorstopper. Don’t be intimidated or procrastinate on reading this document. The information you need to know is at the very front of the packet.

The ANOC letter will cover, usually in just a few pages, everything that is changing on your drug plan from one year to the next. The insurance company will tell you what your new monthly premium will be on January 1^st, as well as the new co-pays for each tier of drugs. If they are changing their drug formulary, they must also notify you of any medications that are being dropped from their formulary.

All too often, people throw this packet on their kitchen table and forget all about it until January, when they suddenly notice an increase in the cost of their medications. Unfortunately by then it’s too late. Your window to change your drug plan is from October 15^th to December 7^th, so be sure to review your ANOC letter carefully. If the drug plan’s premium or copays are going up significantly, you may want to see if another plan would be cheaper for you next year.

Run an Analysis on Medicare’s Part D Website

Even if very little is changing on your drug plan, sometimes you might have added new prescriptions over the last year since you enrolled in your current drug plan. It’s important to check out whether another Part D carrier offers those medications for a lower copay. The easiest way to do this is to visit www.medicare.gov and enter each of your prescriptions into the drug plan finder. Medicare itself will quickly analyze all your medications and compare them against the available drug plans.

When the analysis is complete, look to see where your current drug plan falls on the list. Medicare will always list the plan with the lowest annual costs at the very top of the list. If your current drug plan is number 10 on the list, then you’ll be able to see how much money you would save if you switched to the number 1 plan on the list. Sometimes the savings can be hundreds of dollars per year, so it’s well worth the time to check it.

Talk to your Doctor about Alternatives

Every Medicare drug plan must have two drugs available on its formulary for every therapeutic class. In simple terms, this means that they have to offer at least two medicines that treat certain medical conditions. Often a plan will provide far more than 2 alternatives. A good example would be cholesterol medications. If you are taking a brand name cholesterol medication and have never asked your doctor about it, you might not know that there are dozens of cholesterol medications out there, and quite a few of them are low-cost generic medications. 

Take your list of current medications to your doctor, and tell him or her which ones are costing you the highest co-pays. Find out if there is an alternative drug that treats the same condition but is a generic or lower cost medication. If your doctor approves for you to try an alternative and the new medication works for you, it’s likely that you can find super savings on whichever plan you next choose.

Consult a Professional

Lastly, if doing all this work seems horrendous to you, then consult an agency that focuses on Medicare insurance products. Agents who are certified to offer Part D drug plans go through hours upon hours of training each year to be able to help you, and their services to Medicare beneficiaries come at no charge. Many agencies will run your Part D analysis for you, and can tell you which medications are costing you the most money so that you can talk to your physician about alternatives before the annual election period starts.

The representatives at 1-800-MEDICARE can provide the same service. The bottom line is that you are not alone, and there are many ways to save on your Part D drug plan costs from year to year with just a little pro-action on your part.

About the Author:

Danielle Kunkle is a licensed insurance agency and co-owner of Boomer Benefits, a health insurance agency that works with seniors on their Medicare-related insurance products. You can read more about ways to save money on Medicare products by visiting her website: www.boomerbenefits.com.