As you probably already know, that
when someone goes on Medicare, you have to have a prescription drug plan.
That's what the Part D is.
And so whenever you're on a plan, that plan will give you
some retail options as well as a mail order option.
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Now, today's topic is what you must know about Medicare Part D mail orders.
And so let's look at the details.
Actually, five of them surrounding mail order, part D plans.
Number one, it is never mandatory to use mail order.
Now, I know sometimes in individual plans and group plans it's like
they make you use the mail order service on certain medications.
Certainly a maintenance type medicine all.
But when you go on to Medicare, Medicare will not allow the carriers to do that.
So they'll give you options of retail and mail order.
So it is sometimes
that people will use their mail order for certain maintenance medications.
They may want to go to their pharmacy for others.
It's certainly fine to do that because again, it's never mandatory.
Secondly, don't assume that if you use mail order,
you're going to save money because sometimes that is not the case.
And the reason for
that is because sometimes what'll happen is when they structured the pricing mail
order pricing will be what we call standard pricing instead of preferred.
Again, now sometimes it is cheaper, but when we're on group plans,
individual plans, it's almost always cheaper, but not so in Medicare.
So you have to make sure that you make a comparison between the retail cost
versus the mail order cost.
All right.
Number three, the plan will choose the provider for mail order,
meaning they will identify either maybe one or maybe two different providers
that will actually fill those prescriptions on a mail order basis.
And so you're going to have to go with the company that they select.
So you can't say, well,
I want to use X, Y, Z, because I've always used them for years.
That's not going to work that way.
The plan will identify who the provider will be filling the prescriptions by mail.
Then number four, as always, whether it's a retail or a mail order
prescription, there can be quantity limits
for certain medications and certainly medications
that are very expensive or that are addictive.
You know that we're going to get a 30 day sale on those medications
and so a lot of people think because I use mail order, I'm
going to get a 90 day fill. Now, that may happen on some.
It will happen on a lot of medications, especially maintenance meds.
But again, if the medications expensive or addictive,
those kind of things probably will still be limited to a 30 day supply.
So you may be on mail order, but you probably
you're not going to get a nine day fill.
You get a 30 day fill,
you just have to live with those restrictions
because Medicare applies those to the plans.
And then lastly, Part D plan can change annually.
One of the greatest things about what we call standalone
Part D plans is that you can switch those plans every year
during the open enrollment period.
That's October 15th through December 7th.
Now, any plan we're
on, we're going to be on for a calendar year, January one to 12-31.
If we're going to make a switch,
we have to make that towards the end of the year
during that seven week open enrollment period.
October 15th through December 7th.
So maybe going into the following year, you're taking less meds or more meds
and therefore you may want to change plans.
And so you're able to make that decision with no underwriting whatsoever.
If the plan is in what we call your service area basically is a multi county
or maybe just a metropolitan area is also plans in your service area.
And you're eligible for Medicare A and or B, then you can get a drug plan
as long as it's in that area. All right. And you can change those.
Now about 80% of all people don't need to change their plan year to year,
but you always can
if your medication is changed, you made the plan that you've changed
or the plan that you're on has changed in some way that you're being hurt by that
they dropped a medication maybe they raise their premium drastically.
The co-pays are different and you no longer like that plan.
Then you're able to switch the plan
during the open enrollment period, October 15th, through December 7th.
We make the switch and the new plan would go effective January 1st.
So those are the details surrounding Medicare Part D plans.
If you're going to use mail order services
Hey, thanks so much for watching the video,
and I do hope that it was helpful.
Now if you feel like
you need to learn more about Medicare
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