There's been a lot of discussion lately about the new Medicare drug plan, and how confusing it is for seniors to try to figure out what plan to choose and how to sign up. Especially if they don't have computer access. So I decided that I would volunteer to put in a little time assisting people to work their way through the system.
This dairy is the first in a series where I will write about how it goes. Today's installment (below the fold) describes how I've gotten hooked up with an appropriate agency and started to study up on the program. More installments will follow as I work through the process.
I did a web search to find a local agency near me who was looking for such volunteers, and sent them an e-mail. I got an automated reply giving a URL to a whole bunch of PDFs that I could start reading to get familiar with the program, and the name and phone number of the volunteer coordinator.
The next day I reached the coordinator and set up a meeting, which was mainly to check me out and get references and make sure I was a legitimate volunteer. The agency is one which provides various services to seniors in the area (shopping assistance, financial counseling, etc.), so working through them meant that I would be mostly working with seniors with which they already have an ongoing relationship, a case manager, etc. I might be going to people's homes to help collect data, or answering questions over the phone, or just using data others had collected to run the software on the website and print out a report for the client. It was emphasized that we could not recommend a specific plan or help people make decisions; we could only provide information. They were working on trying to set up a training session soon, so that we could get started before the end of the year.
The following day I read through some of the documents and experimented with the web site. The web site was much better than I expected - allowing you to enter your zip code and a list of medications, and providing you with a list of plans that cover those medications, ordered by estimated annual cost.
One problem I see is that each plan has a different "formulary" of medications covered. That's fine for when you take an unchanging set of medications. But if your doctor prescribes something new for your during the year, then you might have the problem that the new medication is not covered by the plan you have chosen. And then you're stuck - you can only change plans during the enrollment period, Nov 15 - Dec. 31 each year. I can just imagine how complicated it will be for doctors who are trying to prescribe for their patients within the boundaries of each person's formulary, or who have to spend extra time trying to appeal exclusions.
I ran a quick experiment using two drugs I have taken. I assumed that I was taking one drug when I signed up, then added the second drug a few months later. With the first drug, the cheapest plan worked out to $250/year. If I signed up for that, and then added the second drug, I would find that the second drug was not covered. So my annual cost would be $1800/year. (If I had known about both drugs at the time I signed up, I would have been able to choose a different plan that would have come to $800/year.) In addition, any money you spend on uncovered drugs does not count toward your deductible or your annual out-of-pocket cost limit. So it's a real catch-22.
The other day I corresponded with a friend who is covered by a company retirement plan. In that case, most people are recommended to stay in the company plan, since it is usually better than the Medicare plan. This friend pointed out to me that her company is thrilled because they're getting a big pot of money from the goverment to subsidize the benefits that they were obligated to pay out in any case. Just another example of how this drug bill was more for the benefit of big business than the seniors it's supposed to be serving.
This just makes me more determined to try to assist people in getting the most of of this that they can.
My training session is scheduled for next Tuesday, so I'll report on how it goes. In the meantime I'm collecting questions to ask at the training, so if you have any suggestions for questions I might be asked, please write them in the comments. Thanks!