Prescription Plans

[PRICEPLUS]

How many here have a prescription plan? If you have a plan what kind of costs are associated with it? What about co-pays? What about the new prescription plan for seniors? Is it good or bad?

What do you do if you have no or inadequate coverage for medicine? Given the costs that are involved I thought it would make for a thought provoking discussion

[Bluezy]

I will be depending on my HSA for prescriptions. The prescription plans I've seen aren't worth the extra expense.

My HSA is with Golden Rule/United HealthCare. However, many banking institutions and insurance companies are offering HSA's. THat might be the way for you to go.

Good luck to you!

[midnight]

I need to help my mother figure out what plan she needs to get on. It's all so confusing. Is there a good place to go to get comparisons on which plans are good that isn7t complete mumbo jumbo? I have such a hard time understanding all of it.

[flash]

If your mother is on a routine set of medications, go to www.medicare.gov and use their Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Finder. You will need to enter her medications into a list, one by one, adjust the quantities to what she actually takes, and then submit. A list of all the drug plans for her area/zip code will be created, showing how many (11/13, 7/13, etc.) of her drugs are covered by that plan. Then you need to look at the specifics of the "coverage" to see if they provide the coverage she needs. Some may be "covered" but require authorization,m some may be "covered" but only after going through a step program (try cheaper drugs first), etc.

Then go to www.medicaredrugplans.com or www.medicaredrugplans.com/ratings, input the zipcode, and all the plans in the area, with premiums, types of coverage, etc., will be listed, This is an excellent site to compare costs, not just monthly premiums but deductibles, coverage, the "under $20 rule", etc.

If your mom just needs general coverage, and is not on any specific medication, just go straight to medicaredrugplan.com. There is a comparison of the "top 100 drugs", but in someways this is just a loss leader, like supermarkets have, that make plans appear to provide better coverage than they do, because they provide coverage of these 100 meds, but not necessarily anything else.

If you have questions, post them here, there are quite a few who can try to help answer them.

[Ima saver]

I have been very lucky and have never been to the doctors til about a year and a half ago. They did lots of tests to see what was wrong and I ran up bills of about $7000. The hopital was very nice just letting me make monthly payments until I paid the bill. I have no health or prescription coverage.