Most people select a Part D Prescription drug plan and don’t ever change it. This is a huge mistake. What few people realize and that the drug companies change their formularies (list of covered prescriptions) each year. A drug they may cover one year, they may not cover at all the next. A drug that was considered a Tier 1 (lowest cost tier) may change to a Tier 3 the following year thereby increasing the cost of that prescription.
Your drug plan premium may also increase each year, as well. Obviously, this too will increase your cost.
So even if your prescriptions do not change, your drug coverage needs to be looked at each year. I work with many people on their Medicare in Florida and many of them save money by me evaluating their drug coverage and moving to a plan with the lowest overall cost. Overall cost is defined as the monthly premium for the drug plan + the cost of the prescriptions at the pharmacy. Whichever plans comes in the lowest that would be your best option for the upcoming year.
There have been studies conducted that people get so overwhelmed with making the decision on the Medicare coverage, that they don’t want to look at it again. This in turn can be very costly mistake, especially if you take some expensive prescriptions. If you don’t want to do this work yourself, you need to work with a Medicare Insurance professional who can do this for you.
I have been focusing on Medicare solutions for my clients for the past 15 years and I save folks a lot of money each year by evaluating their drug coverage. There was one time I saved a husband and wife over $14,000 in prescriptions costs by changing them to the appropriate Part D coverage for the upcoming year. If they would have let their coverage remain, they would have spent an extra $14,000 unnecessarily. That is a ton of money, especially for people on a fixed income.
One more thing, if you are on a Medicare Advantage Plan, you need to make sure that the drug coverage component in your plan is covering your prescriptions affordably each year.
Call the folks at Dave Silver Insurance and we provide this service for you. There are never and fees for our services.