Selecting the right Medicare prescription drug plan is one of the most important and challenging decisions retirees have to make. This decision may come up annually, because drug plans change often. Making the wrong decision can end up costing you thousands of dollars. Fortunately, Medicare provides an online comparison tool to help you work through the complex alternatives.
Step 1
List the following Medicare prescription drug plan features in order of personal importance, from highest to lowest:
Coverage in the gap, also called the "doughnut hole"
Monthly drug premiums
Annual deductible
Drug cost sharing
Summary rating of prescription drug plan quality
Step 2
Visit the Medicare website. Click "Health & Drug Plans," then click "Find and Compare Plans." On the next page, click "Find & Compare Plans" again. Click "Begin Personalized Search" on the following page.
Step 3
Fill in the requested personal information boxes on the next page labeled "Enter Your Medicare Insurance Information." Scan through the following page, which gives information on your current options, then click "Continue."
Step 4
Select one of the next two options. If you choose the option to get drug costs for your plan, you must enter all your current drugs. After that, you arrive at the same point as if you had chosen the other option, which opens a page to enter personal Medicare information, but the system holds the drug data as well.
Step 5
Scroll down below your current plan if you have one. Starting with the highest-importance column from Step 1, click on the related column. The first click sorts the plans from low to high. You can sort the results from high to low by clicking a second time on the same column. Clicking on "Plan Name" sorts the plans alphabetically. Select how many plans you want to see per page at the bottom of the screen. This allows you to limit your results to the top five, 10 or more plans.
Step 6
Click on "Print this Page" at the top right before you move on to the next sorting so you can see all the features at once. Click on the plan name to display more details about the selected plan, including the formulary and detailed ratings.
Step 7
Click on "View plan quality and performance ratings for all available plans" to compare up to three plans at once. When the new page loads, click on the checkbox at the left of each row to select three plans to compare.
Tips and Warnings
- Several options on the plan listing pages allow you to fine-tune your search by restricting results to annual deductible limits, monthly premiums less than a specified amount, whether the plan offers coverage during the gap and more options. If you pay more than $35 a month for drugs, Medicare suggests that you enter your drugs to get a more precise estimate of your total drug costs.
- If you don't check the formulary of each plan you consider for all your current drugs, you may end up with a plan that doesn't pay for all your drugs.
