Savings in the cards
Picking the best Medicare drug discount card is tougher than ever
CMS has revamped its site, adding different ways to search for drug names, distilling the number of card choices down to the top five best deals for the individual, adding an online link to the card sponsors that allow enrollment--and CMS Administrator Mark McClellan said recently that telephone hold times were down to a maximum of two minutes. The government has also ramped up outreach efforts, which explains the commercials you've seen on TV lately. State and community groups have received grants to do person-to-person outreach, since many Medicare recipients don't have easy access to the Internet--the easiest way to compare the programs side by side and then choose one. "The biggest challenge is how we better reach out to seniors eligible for this help," says Mary Grealy, president of the Healthcare Leadership Council, a coalition of health industry executives.
These problems received top billing in the press, discouraging many people. A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health policy group, found that 53 percent of those surveyed agreed the cards weren't worth the trouble because the confusion was too high and the perceived benefit too low. "People are quite skeptical," says Tricia Neuman, a vice president with Kaiser. Ruth McKay, 85, of Concord, N.H., hasn't heard anything good about the cards and doesn't trust the current administration; she'd prefer to save money by buying her drugs in Canada. "I was really very wary," she says. She says few of her friends in her retirement community have gotten the discount cards either.
Yet some of the nonbelievers may be missing out on real deals. Another Kaiser study found that in some cases the cards really do provide value, especially if you use the mail-order option (chart, Page 56). A study by the Healthcare Leadership Council found that the best cards offer savings of more than 20 percent, adding up to more than $850 in savings over 18 months for a typical Medicare recipient. But Ed Mills is going to do even better than that this year. The 66-year-old retired banker in Ukiah, Calif., couldn't believe his eyes when he took his new Rx Savings Access card to the drugstore for the first time. His usual monthly bill of $132 for two drugs--Lipitor and a blood pressure medication--dropped to less than $10. "The young lady there the first time I used it said, 'Wow, where'd you get this?'" he recalls. "I got home and thought, 'Maybe she charged you the discount instead of the price.' But when I renewed the prescription, it was the same thing."
Money on the table. So, should you follow his lead? If you qualify for the $600 annual credit, as Mills does, and aren't already covered by Medicaid, you should most likely sign up. Because it's an annual benefit, you'll get $600 this year and another $600 in 2005. "You should absolutely not leave money on the table," says Burns. Even if you're already enrolled in a state pharmacy assistance program (SPAP), the programs may work together to get you greater savings (check with yours for details). For that reason, advocates for the poor are urging the government to automatically enroll all those who already qualify under other aid programs. There's a precedent: Some 2.5 million people were automatically enrolled in the cards by their Medicare HMO s. (CMS says it's still working on the legalities of expanded auto-enrollment; advocates are hoping it will be resolved this fall.) Many big pharmaceutical companies are now working with the Medicare card program to offer discounts and additional aid; many provide free or deeply discounted drugs after the $600 credit is exhausted (story, Page 60). People are automatically enrolled in the manufacturer's discount program when they sign up for the card affiliated with the manufacturer. (To see which cards are affiliated with which companies, go to http://www.cms.hhs.gov/medicare reform/drugcard/mfragre ements.asp .)
advertisement
