What is Part D?Medicare Part D is a federal program administered through private insurance companies. These companies offer retail prescription drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries. Prior to 2006, when the Medicare Part D began, tens of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries in America had little help with retail drug costs. They would often spend thousands of dollars each year paying for their medications out of pocket.
Fortunately, today’s Medicare beneficiaries have better coverage with Part D. Beneficiaries can enroll in a standalone Part D drug plan that goes alongside their Original Medicare benefits, or they can choose a Part D drug plan that is built-in to a Medicare Part C plan. What is Part D and how does it work? It is an optional prescription drug program for people on Medicare.Medicare Part D is simply insurance for your medication needs. You pay a monthly premium to an insurance carrier for your Part D plan. In return, you use the insurance carrier’s network of pharmacies to purchase your prescription medications. Instead of paying full price, you will pay a copay or percentage of the drug’s cost. The insurance company will pay the rest.
Your Part D insurance card will be separate from your Medigap plan. Medicare Part D plans all follow federal guidelines. Each insurance carrier must submit its plan outline to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services annually for approval. To improve your understanding of Medicare Part D, let’s look at the basic way that each Part D plan works: How does Medicare Part D work? There are 4 stages to a Part D drug plan, as follows:
Medicare Part D Explained - Medicare Tracks Your Part D SpendingIt’s important to note that Medicare itself tracks your True Out of Pocket Costs (TrOOP) for each year. This can protect you from paying certain costs twice. For example, say you have already satisfied the deductible on one plan. Then you later switch mid-year to a different Medicare Part D plan because you moved out of state. Your new plan will already see that you have paid the deductible for that year. The costs for coverage gap and catastrophic coverage work the same way.
Part D drug plans also have changes from year to year. Your plan’s benefits, formulary, pharmacy network, provider network, premium and/or co-payments/co-insurance may change on January 1st of each year. Medicare gives you an annual election period during which you can change your plan if you desire to do so. Drug utilization rules that affect your Part D coverageMedicare allows drug plan carriers to apply certain rules for safety reasons and also for cost containment. The most common utilization rules that you may run into are:
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