Health & Fitness
Medicare Drivers: Fire Up Your Drug Lists!
It's time to add or update your prescription drug list to medicare.gov
All of the new Cape Cod 2014 public Part C Medicare Advantage health plans and Part D standalone prescription drug plans will be up on medicare.gov some time soon... perhaps next week... perhaps this weekend.
But as the visual shows, it's not too soon to go on to the Medicare web site and set up your ID and "passdate" (see Note), and even enter your drug list. If you did this last year, use last year's ID and "passdate" and save yourself a lot of time entering all of the complicated drug names (but you need to add and delete and change dosages if applicable). Once you set up your drug and pharmacy choices (the screen has no idea it's actually you unless you tell it; it's just a list of drugs), the ID and "passdate" you enter now will work when the 2014 plans are posted to the Medicare web site.
I used my local zip code (top oval). You will have to use your own zip code because although the public Part C Medicare Advantage health plans and Part D standalone prescription drug plans are pretty much the same all over Barnstable County (but not on the Islands--two different counties!), your zip code determines which pharmacies are closest. That can matter in terms of driving time of course but also -- more important -- in terms of premium costs.
The lower oval shows that in 2013 there were 41 plans available in Dennis (and most likely the whole Cape but I can't swear to it). We'll know next week whether the number has decreased for 2014 as is the case nationwide (but there still should be plenty of choices).
NOTE: Only the government would have a "passdate" instead of a password, right?
