Formulary for Medicare D

I may have to post this question in a different section.

No, but I'm interested in the answer.

You can go to the Medicare website and then, put in your State, which will then bring you to a screen that'll allow you to name the meds you want to order.

Problems:

No mention of pharmacy names

No mention of costs of drugs.

Sometimes, it's cheaper not to have drug insurance coverage and just go online and buy them straight from the online pharmacy source. I've found that Walgreens drug prices can be so high, that having insurance doesn't help that much and that greater savings can be had, by skipping the insurance coverage for drugs and just buying online, instead.

I think one way around this, is to go to a drugstore such as Walgreens and ask them how much the drugs cost, when covered by part D of Medicare.

Even with part D coverage, a person still pays a premium/month to cover the plan. From what I've seen, this is about $25, then you have the $88/mo for the Part B plan. Add in the basic medigap insurance ( figure about $100 ) you're looking at about $2500/year, not including the co-pay for the meds.

This plan is supposed to save people money, if their drug bills are at least $850/year.

On the medicare site, I believe I read that the cost of Medicare is now of the order of about $30 billion/year.

Tell me about the cost of the military industrial complex and all its off-shoots.

If you want further shock, check out the US savings bonds site and see how much the Governement owes in uncashed bonds.
If everyone with a matured US bond ran to the bank and cashed the bonds, I think the Gov could collapse.

You don't have to. You can send a note to the Help Desk and ask for us to move the topic to Aging (or whatever other forum you want) using a shadow (don't worry, we'll understand what you mean). This way, there's only 1 copy of the topic so everything stays together. Limit one shadow, e. g. your topic will end up in no more than a total of 2 forums. Thanks.

thanks, jespah, I was going to say something like that, didn't, missed that shadow business. Turns out I didn't fully understand.

Is this in a forum help thread?

Helfino, a lot of the help stuff was written quite a while ago.

Formulary for Medicare D
Every state has different plans, and every plan has different selections. The one thing all are required to have is a minimum of two choices for every category of drug.

You can find these categories by going to Google & entering "Medicare D" Formulary. Be sure to use the quotation marks; it reduces the enormous number of entries. A few entries down the Google list you will see Medicare Part D - Quick Reference Guide. Click on this, and you will find New York State's summary of the types of drugs that MUST be covered. This will tell you what types of drugs are covered; this list is the same for every state. It will also tell you what types of drugs are not covered. I know it's the New York State Health Dept site, but this information is uniform throughout the country

Your next step is to go to www.medicare.gov and work your way through the site, entering your state, your medications, etc. You will also be able to choose your pharmacy. (You can, of course, skip the Google step, and go direct to www.medicare.gov.)

As to buying your medications at Wal-Mart without Medicare D coverage: This is still in the experimental stages, so far only Florida is doing it. But in any case, if you wait, on the grounds that you pay less and don't have many medications anyway, you may be putting yourself in an unpleasant situation down the line. There is a penalty which increases over time, for not joining Medicare D when you first become eligible. One suggested solution to this is to join the least expensive plan your state offers, thus keeping your eligibility open, without and then changing plans at a later date, if you need different/more coverage.

Personally, I don't like Medicare D very much, but older adults are pretty much stuck with it. We are lucky - for the moment, at least - in that the donut hole is covered by my husband's former employer; however this benefit is fairly rare. We both have some rather expensive medications, and it won't be till the end of the year that we can really calculate whether we have benefited by D; I am in the "gap" & will soon qualify for "catastrophic coverage", which will make for some complicated calculations, I think.

BTW - We joined AARP to get their plan, as it had the best coverage, and a monthly fee just under $24. There would, of course, be no reason for you not to buy your drugs at Wal-Mart, even if you are a member of AARP or some other plan. You'd have to compare the prices of each drug, Wal-Mart vs AARP or whichever plan you choose.

Good luck.

Formulary for Medicare D
Every state has different plans, and every plan has different selections. The one thing all are required to have is a minimum of two choices for every category of drug.

You can find these categories by going to Google & entering "Medicare D" Formulary. Be sure to use the quotation marks; it reduces the enormous number of entries. A few entries down the Google list you will see Medicare Part D - Quick Reference Guide. Click on this, and you will find New York State's summary of the types of drugs that MUST be covered. This will tell you what types of drugs are covered; this list is the same for every state. It will also tell you what types of drugs are not covered. I know it's the New York State Health Dept site, but this information is uniform throughout the country

Your next step is to go to www.medicare.gov and work your way through the site, entering your state, your medications, etc. You will also be able to choose your pharmacy. (You can, of course, skip the Google step, and go direct to www.medicare.gov.)

As to buying your medications at Wal-Mart without Medicare D coverage: This is still in the experimental stages, so far only Florida is doing it. But in any case, if you wait, on the grounds that you pay less and don't have many medications anyway, you may be putting yourself in an unpleasant situation down the line. There is a penalty which increases over time, for not joining Medicare D when you first become eligible. One suggested solution to this is to join the least expensive plan your state offers, thus keeping your eligibility open, without and then changing plans at a later date, if you need different/more coverage.

Personally, I don't like Medicare D very much, but older adults are pretty much stuck with it. We are lucky - for the moment, at least - in that the donut hole is covered by my husband's former employer; however this benefit is fairly rare. We both have some rather expensive medications, and it won't be till the end of the year that we can really calculate whether we have benefited by D; I am in the "gap" & will soon qualify for "catastrophic coverage", which will make for some complicated calculations, I think.

BTW - We joined AARP to get their plan, as it had the best coverage, and a monthly fee just under $24. There would, of course, be no reason for you not to buy your drugs at Wal-Mart, even if you are a member of AARP or some other plan. You'd have to compare the prices of each drug, Wal-Mart vs AARP or whichever plan you choose.

Good luck.

Formulary for Medicare D
In the next-t-last line of 4th paragraph below, ignore the word "without"; it shouldn't have been left in there, and makes no sense. Sorry.

Formulary for Medicare D
Oops! Embarrassment! I mixed up Walgreen's and Wal-Mart. Sorry about that, but the facts I gave are all correct.

During the past 2 years, I made a comparison between drugs bought at Walgreens with an Rx covered by my health insurance, drugs bought at Walgreens Rx, not covered by health insurance and
drugstore.com for drugs, bought with cash.

The bottom line was that health insurance with drug coverage didn't save money when I shopped at Walgreens for my Rxs. Without drug coverage on the insurance, the cheapest was drugstore.com.

When ordering form drugstore.com I first used their 3 day UPS delivery system, when I ordered online and I usually got the meds in 1-2 days. Excellent service, except on one occassion, the drug package had been sliced open ( on purpose??) and I reported it to the drug company.

After this episode, I decide to save money and had my meds sent by regular mail. It takes a little longer, so you have to order in advance to be sure you get your meds in time.

Thanks for all of your valuable info, TomKittten!