6 Days until Medicare Part D enrollment ends
With six days left until the fees to enroll kick in, the Medicare Part D drug benefit is still experiencing about 400,000 new signups every week. There has been talk about extending the deadline to sign up, but so far it remains at May 15. Rolled out in November, the new benefit has seen some 35.8 million subscribers join. Private insurers would like to see the deadline extended as well, because many of them are raking in fat revenues, especially United Healthcare (the PBM behind AARP's Part D plan and Caremark). Of course, if a senior doesn't sign up for the plan, but later joins, there is a 1% penalty on their premiums for every month that they waited.
Unlike parts A, B, and C, this new benefit is administered by private companies, a surprisingly effective means of keeping administrative costs down: private insurers are essentially given a bowl of money to play with, and they are required to create plans that can be tailored to individuals' needs so long as they meet some certain basic criteria.
In another startling occurence, the best place to find which Medicare plan is best for you (or loved one) is by using medicare.gov's comparison tool which allows individuals to enter some basic location information, and then enter the drugs that they take and in what dosages. The tool then spits out (in order) which plans are the least expensive. It's actually quite handy — I have used it many times to help seniors pick plans when I was doing Medicare consulting.
Unfortunately, not many seniors are Internet-savvy so they require hand-holding to help them navigate the mess that is the Part D supplement. Being intimately familiar with the plan, however, there is no easy way to make it any simpler for seniors than it already is. Medicine is not a one-size-fits-all field, unfortunately, so pharmacies are shouldering much of the responsibility of Medicare consulting. Some pharmacies, in fact, have embraced their role as consultants. CVS/pharmacy has capitalized on the opportunity to win back seniors previously on mail-order-only prescription drug plans, and they gambled extra employee time on this possibility. So far, they've done well: CVS's same store revenues are up 9.7% in the first quarter of 2006, of which, pharmacy makes up 71%.
[tags]Medicare Part D, Part D, CVS, Caremark, United Healthcare, Pharmacy, prescription drugs[/tags]
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[...] Back in October I knew UnitedHealth would take the lead in signing up Part D subscribers. Why? Because they made it so darn easy by leveraging a relationship with AARP, and making it as simple as filling out a one-page form. People don't like choice. Rather, they do, but are unable to effectively evaluate their options to make the best decision, particularly when it comes to complex decisions like health insurance. This trait is particularly exacerbated in seniors (as a rule). "Choice paralysis," as it were. [...]
Pingback by OnThePharm » How UnitedHealth capitalized on Medicare “choice paralysis” — June 20, 2006 @ 10:05 pm