What You Need to Know Before Choosing or Switching Medicare Part D Programs

'Tis the season for anyone on Medicare to decide if they want to make any changes to their Medicare Part D plan beginning with the New Year and the ads are everywhere.

There are ads from pharmacies, offering assistance choosing a Part D plan, and ads from Part D providers encouraging people to choose their option.

Having observed some of these plans in action last spring as they came into effect, I have a few words of caution for anyone selecting or changing their Medicare Part D plan. Part D is the Medicare prescription drug program that has been highly touted as a boon for those on Medicare, but in reality is not as good as it could be.

In Illinois, many people who are now covered by Medicare Part D were once covered by an Illinois state program called Circuit Breaker. The Circuit Breaker program helped those low-income seniors without a Medicare supplement insurance to get prescription drugs at a reasonable cost. Sure, there were co-pays, but most were $10 to $15.

When the federal government began offering the Medicare Part D option, people who were receiving Circuit Breaker were notified that the state would help pay their premium for enrollment in a Part D program. That relieves the state of the burden of paying for these medications and puts it squarely on the insurance companies that offer Part D policies.

The problem is that someone forgot to do their research and I have lost count of the number of senior citizens that I have seen who have to change their medication, or pay a substantially larger co-pay due to the program that was supposed to be a boon.

Because it is the field I worked in, most of my experience is with co-pays for eye medications. Most often, glaucoma drops. These drops are used daily, or sometimes more often, to control the pressure in the eye and stop deterioration of the optic nerve. In short, they keep people from going blind.