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Medicare.gov Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plan and Medicare Advantage Plan Finder Tutorial
Looking for a guide to using the Medicare.gov Medicare Part D prescription drug plan and Medicare Advantage plan finder?
The Q1Medicare.com Online Team has put together a short summary to help you navigate your way through the Medicare.gov Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage plan finder (or plan selection) tool. Below, you will find an overview of the web pages that lead you through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (Medicare or CMS) rather complex and online plan finder tool. If you have questions, please let us know - for our Customer Help Desk contact form. We also provide a Pre-2010 Medicare.gov Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plan Finder Tutorial for members of our Medicare community that would like to re-visit the "good-old-days" of 2005 to early-2010.
Please note that "Jump to" links leading to a further explanation of each tutorial page are provided under each graphic below.
The following are Quick Links to the various sections of this page:
:: Starting at the Beginning: The Medicare.gov Homepage
:: Find and Compare Medicare Part D or Medicare Advantage Plans
:: Select a Search Option
:: Errors Can Occur When Using Any Website
:: Requested Information by Medicare before Searching
:: Other Possible Coverage Options or Status Options
:: Search for Medicare Rx Plans and/or Medicare Advantage Plans by Drug Cost
:: Find and Enter Your Prescription Medication or Drug Information
:: Review Your Prescription Drug Dosages and Quantities
:: Return to a Saved Drug List (Optional)
:: Select Preferred Pharmacy or Pharmacies
:: Map View of your Selected Pharmacy or Pharmacies (Optional)
:: Your Personalized Medicare Plan List (Medicare Plan Overview)
:: Compare Medicare Plans in Your List (Plan Details)
:: Viewing Additional Plan Details
:: Plan Cost Estimation without Entering Drug Information
:: An Example Using Full Low-Income Subsidy (or LIS or Extra-Help)
:: Here is the Big Picture: A View of the entire Medicare Plan Finder Process
Starting at the Beginning: The Medicare.gov Homepage
You will find that the Medicare.gov home page generously provides you with more than one way to find your way to the Medicare Part D prescription drug or Medicare Advantage plan finder.
To start, you can select either the left-hand Medicare.gov navigation menu item entitled: "Health and Drug Plans" and then choose an option under this menu or you can choose one of the other links on the Medicare homepage. For instance, there are links at the bottom of the page that correspond to the links in the top-horizontal navigation drop-down boxes. Please note that, like any web site, the Medicare homepage changes from time-to-time and you may find a link under the "What's New" section or in another area of the Medicare homepage.
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:: Jump to Understanding the Medicare Home Page
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Comparing Apples to Apples |
If you wish to see both Medicare Advantage plans (or MAs or MAPDs) and the stand-alone Medicare Part D prescription drug plans (or PDPs) that are available in your area, the Medicare.gov gives you a few opportunities to view both types of plans as you work through their system.
Remember not to get the two different Medicare plans confused.- Medicare Part D plans (sometimes called "stand-alone Medicare Part D prescription drug plans") only provide prescription drug coverage.
- Medicare Advantage plans (or Medicare Part C plans or Medicare Health plans) provide coverage for Medicare Part A (Hospitalization, In-patient) and Medicare Part B (Physician Services and out-patient) — and may also include a prescription drug benefit (sometimes called a MA-PD) — along with other coverage benefits. At a minimum, a Medicare Advantage plan should provide coverage at least as good as your Original Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B. Remember that a Medicare Advantage plan is not a Medicare Supplement. A Medicare Advantage plan works in place of Original Medicare Part A and Part B. A Medicare Supplement works in addition (or on top of) your Original Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B coverage.
Bottom Line: When in doubt, slow down and review your options. Please do not rush through the Medicare.gov website — you may pass by something important to your Medicare coverage.
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Find and Compare Medicare Part D or Medicare Advantage Plans
As noted above, there are a number of ways to get to the "Medicare Plan Finder" from the Medicare.gov homepage screen. In our example here, we will choose the left-side navigation labeled "Health & Drug Plans" and when the menu expands to the right of your screen, choose the option that lets us "Compare Medicare Drug and Health Plans". Medicare Drug and Health Plans are just a shorter way of saying Medicare Advantage plans and Medicare Part D prescription drug plans. However, again Medicare Supplements or Medi—Gap policies are not included in this search tool.
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:: Jump to Find and Compare Medicare Plans
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Select a Search Option
Once we start the process, we see again that there we have different options on the "Medicare Plan Finder" Medicare.gov screen, including the options where:
- You can enter your ZIP Code to begin the Medicare Part D or Medicare Advantage plan search process.
- You can enter all of your Medicare Information from your Red, White, and Blue Medicare card for a Personalized Search.
- You can take an online tutorial on how to use the Medicare.gov Plan Finder.
- You can navigate to another part of the Medicare website by choosing one of the many available menu options or links.
We usually choose to just enter our chosen ZIP Code and proceed to the next step. If your ZIP Code includes more than one county, you will be asked to choose your resident county.
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Warning! Watch Entering Your Personal Medicare Information on a Public Computer |
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We do not recommend entering your personal information into the computer if you are searching for a Medicare plan in a public area. For instance, if you are using your laptop or tablet at your local coffee where they provide free wireless internet access along with your coffee. Identity theft is a big business and you do not want to be the next victim. Also, if you want to enroll into a Medicare Part D or Medicare Advantage plan online through the Medicare.gov website, consider enrolling from your home computer or a computer that you know is secure. Our advice here is not just for the Medicare.gov site. You should be be careful with your personal information anytime when using a public computer or working with your computer in a public place.
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:: Jump to Select a Search Option
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Errors Can Occur When Using Any Website
No worries. Any complex internet site like the Medicare.gov site can have problems or need period maintenance. So you may see an error message or two when using the Medicare Plan Finder. But, there is no need to panic or blame the government. The example screen here just tells you that: "Your request contained invalid characters. Choose one of the links below to continue browsing Medicare.gov." In such a situation, the best thing to do is just follow the advice given to you by the website. If you wish, you can also usually use your "Back" arrow on your browser to get you to the previous page that you were viewing.
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Requested Information by Medicare before Searching
On this screen Medicare asks about your current Medicare plan coverage and whether you receive any additional financial assistance paying your Medicare prescription drug costs.
Some of you may remember that at this point in previous versions of the Medicare Plan Finder you were asked about your health status. In this version of the Medicare.gov plan finder, the personal health question is no longer being asked at this point in the process (the question was instead added to the options of Step 4) — which is a shame because we always enjoyed trying to figure out what "good" health really meant to a Senior or other Medicare beneficiary. We concluded that your subjective view of your own projected health status was probably a good gauge of your own sense of personal optimism. Anyway, in this section, you are also asked about your current Medicare plan coverage. If you are not sure about your Medicare coverage or whether you qualify to receive financial assistance, you can just choose "I don’t know" for each of the questions. We usually choose "I don’t know" just to maximize the number of Medicare plans we receive in our search results. However - if you cannot remember whether you have a Medicare Supplement or a Medicare Advantage plan - the difference really does matter, so be sure to find out before choosing a new Medicare plan.
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Are you already enrolled in a Medicare Supplement or Medi-Gap policy? |
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Some people who are searching for just a Medicare Part D prescription drug plan are drawn to a Medicare Advantage plan that offers, not only Medicare health coverage, but also prescription drug coverage all for a $0 monthly premium. Yes, sometimes you can get something for nothing or close to nothing. But again, be sure to find out whether you are enrolled in a Medicare Supplement before considering any Medicare Advantage plan. Why is this so important? You cannot use a Medicare Supplement and a Medicare Advantage plan at the same time and your enrollment in a Medicare Advantage plan will cancel your Medicare Supplement policy. As a note, if you move from a Medicare Supplement to a Medicare Advantage plan, be sure that your current doctors and other health care providers accept your chosen Medicare Advantage plan — before you enroll.
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:: Jump to Requested Information by Medicare before Searching
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Other Possible Coverage Options or Status Options
The example screen shown here is actually an intermediate screen for a user who has selected one of the options - such as, Medicare Health Plan - and is looking to identify which Medicare Health plan. In this example, the ZIP Code was 44224 (Stow, Ohio) in Summit County (not Portage County). A similar page is shown if you had chosen that you have Medicare prescription drug coverage. The list of plans is sorted alphabetically by plan name, so you need to scroll down the page to find your chosen Medicare plan. At both the top and the bottom of the page are also the option to either admit that you cannot remember the name of your Medicare plan or that your Medicare plan is not listed.
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Viewing and Changing the Personal Information You have Entered. |
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In the previous version of the Medicare tool, one screen showed you a summary of all the information you entered up to this point - your ZIP Code or current Medicare plan or financial extra-help status. In the updated Medicare Plan Finder, the information you entered will be shown in a box on the right side of each page. However, (at least presently) there is not a link to return and edit this information. Instead you can either use your browsers back arrow or use the cookie-crumb link in the upper-left, under the top-navigation. (This will be shown later in other examples.)
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:: Jump to Review Current Coverage or Status Options
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Search for Medicare Rx Plans and/or Medicare Advantage Plans by Drug Cost
From this point, we have a couple of different ways to move forward with our Medicare plan search. We can search for Medicare Part D prescription drug plans (PDPs) and / or Medicare Advantage plans that offer prescription coverage (MA-PDs) by either (1) entering our prescription medications and building a drug list or (2) doing a general search of all Medicare plans without entering our prescription drugs (you can choose this option by clicking on the "I don’t want to add drugs now". When we enter our medications, we will see the Medicare plans sorted by how much the plan could cost per year with our specific medications. If you do not take any medications, you can simply skip the drug list step (click on "I don’t take any drugs") and take a look at the available Medicare Part D plans in your area. If we do not enter our medications, we will just see a list of plans sorted by cost or approximated cost that may not reflect your actual annual drug costs (Medicare also provides you with a warning about this estimate).
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Saving Your Drug List and Returning to Continue youe Medicare Plan Search |
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As shown in more detail below, the Medicare.gov Plan Finder automatically builds a Drug List ID and Password Date for you to return to a saved drug list. When we enter medications to begin a Medicare plan search we always copy down that rather long number and the associated date as our first step. When you return, you can navigate back to the drug entry screen and just input your Drug List ID and Password Date to retrieve your drug list.
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:: Jump to Decide if you Want to Get Drug Costs for Your Medicare Plans
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Find and Enter Your Prescription Medication or Drug Information
If you have chosen to enter your drug list, you will find that this is where the fun finally starts as you find your medications and put them in your drug list! You can begin either by just typing the name of your prescriptions and (depending on your browser settings) you may see a list of medications that match what you have typed. You can just choose your medication name out of the list. You can also browse through the names of the medications from an alphabetical listing of all covered medications.
If you enter a medication that is not covered by the Medicare Part D prescription drug program (such as Aspirin), then the system will list the drug, but show that the drug is over the counter (or OTC). The "Add Drug" button will be missing because OTC drugs cannot be added to your drug list. You may find that some prescription medications (such as Viagra®) that are not covered by the Medicare Part D program are still covered by some Medicare Part D plans as "Bonus Drugs". Bonus Drugs will not count toward your total Medicare Part D spending limits.
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Take your time - but not too much time!! |
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An earlier version of the Medicare.gov Plan Finder was very time sensitive and, if you took too long, you were given the dreaded Medicare Time-Out Screen. But, thanks to a Medicare update, Medicare now lets you know that the system has been idle and you have the option to continue. So, if you take too long to enter your personal or drug information or stop to watch a little television or talk on the phone or have a snack, the Medicare Plan Finder can time-out, send you a small dialog screen, and you will choose the right option or you will need to return to the beginning of the Plan Finder process and re-enter your information. Unless you have written down the Drug List ID / Password Date, you will also have to re-enter your medication list.
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:: Jump to Find and Enter Your Drug Information
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Review Your Prescription Drug Dosages and Quantities
Once your medication is selected, you can choose the proper strength (dosage) and quantity. The most popular strength and quantity of each medication is already chosen by default. Your selection of medication strength and quantity will determine the accuracy of your Medicare plan comparison (that is, not all Medicare prescription drug plans cover all the strengths of a particular medication). When you have entered all of your medications and made any necessary changes, you can click on the "My Drug List is Complete" button to move on to the next step of choosing your local pharmacy or pharmacies where you wish to fill your prescriptions or use your Medicare Part D plan.
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:: Jump to Review Your Drug Dosages and Quantities
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Return to a Saved Drug List (Optional)
As mentioned above, if you have already entered a Drug List from a previous session then you can return to the Medicare.gov site and continue your search. When you begin to enter your drug list, you will notice on the right side of the page that you were assigned a Drug List ID and a Password Date. You cannot change the Drug List ID, but you can change your Password date. If we cannot complete our Medicare plan search on one sitting or when we decide to return and continue working on our Medicare plan search, we just need to enter our Drug List ID and the Password Date and we will retrieve our personal drug list. This feature is very handy if your prescriptions or health has changed before you have actually joined a Medicare Part D or Medicare Advantage plan and you would like to see if your chosen plan still provides the most affordable coverage.
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:: Jump to Save Your Drug List (Optional)
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Select Preferred Pharmacy or Pharmacies
If you have a favorite pharmacy, you can check here to ensure that it is included within a specific Medicare Part D plan's or Medicare Advantage plan's Pharmacy Network. We usually skip this step because most prescription drug plans include a network of 50,000+ pharmacies. If, however, you live in a very remote area, you may want to double-check that the local pharmacy is part of a few drug plan pharmacy networks. If the pharmacy is not included, you can always ask the pharmacy to join a pharmacy network.
Although we usually skip the pharmacy selection step, this page really provides you with a few nice options if you are concerned about which pharmacy will accept a Medicare Part D prescription drug plan. Like the previous step that allows you to skip the entry of your prescription drugs, this step also provides you with the option of: "I don’t want to add pharmacies now" (we usually click here). However, you can also select the pharmacies that are close to your home or located within your ZIP Code. The pharmacy search allows you to search with a fixed number of miles or you search for a pharmacy by name. You can also search for pharmacies by using the map function as shown below.
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Why You May Want to Select Your Pharmacy Before Comparing Plans |
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Every Medicare plan year is a little different with a different set of Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage plans in your area. Some years, you might find a Medicare Part D plan that separates network pharmacies into several classes that have different pricing. For instance, you may find that some Medicare Part D plans charge lower drug prices at preferred network pharmacies and higher prescription drug prices at non-preferred network pharmacies. So if you do not select your local or usual pharmacy, your actual annual prescription costs may be significantly higher than you expected. In other words, the price at your pharmacy may not be the price you see on the Medicare.gov Plan Finder. You can pick up to two pharmacies in this section and return back to this page to select other stores. In the unlikely event that your chosen pharmacy isn’t in a Medicare plan’s pharmacy network, the drug costs you will see in the Plan Finder are the full retail price of the drugs with no insurance coverage.
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:: Jump to Select Preferred Pharmacy or Pharmacies
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Map View of your Selected Pharmacy or Pharmacies (Optional)
In one of the updates, the Medicare.gov Plan Finder introduced the pharmacy list as the default view. Previously, the map view was shown at this step as the default view. You can now move between the map and list view using the buttons provided above these sections. If you do not see any pharmacies on your map, you may need to increase the magnification with the (+) sign located on the map.
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:: Jump to Select Preferred Pharmacy or Pharmacies
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Your Personalized Medicare Plan List (Medicare Plan Overview)
We are finally there: The Medicare Plan Finder results page! The Medicare Plan Finder summary has information on the number of different types of Medicare plans available to us. We see Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, Medicare Advantage plans without prescription coverage, Medicare Advantage plans with prescription coverage, and even Original Medicare is listed as an option. We will continue on to more details from this page, however, if we wish to narrow the details, we can "un-check" the type of Medicare plans that do not interest us (if you currently have just a Medicare Part D prescription drug plan (without any additional health coverage), you may want to un-check all other plan types so that you can compare similar plans to what your current Medicare plan. Later, you can always return and examine how a Medicare Health plan (or Medicare Advantage plan) compares to your prescription only Medicare Part D plan. At the top of the page we also see the cookie-crumb navigation that lets us return to earlier screens and change information. If you jump back too far, the information will not be saved and you will need your drug list ID and date to recall you prescription drug list.
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:: Jump to Your Personalized Medicare Plan Summary
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Compare Medicare Plans in Your List (Plan Details)
We can compare up to three Medicare plans in detail at one time. In fact, we can compare Medicare Advantage plans with prescription only Medicare Part D plans and yes, this is a little bit confusing. Medicare Advantage plans (or Medicare Health plans) may offer prescription drug benefits along with Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B health coverage as compared to a stand-alone Medicare Part D prescription drug plan that offers only drug coverage. Be careful to understand what you are comparing before you make an enrollment decision. In our example screen, we are only comparing stand alone Medicare Part D prescription drug plans.
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:: Jump to Compare Plans in Your List (Plan Details)
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Viewing Additional Plan Details
You see even more details about a particular Medicare Part D prescription drug plan or Medicare Advantage plan by just clicking on the name of the Medicare plan. More detailed Medicare plan information includes the actual co-payment costs per drug tier and a graph of how your Medicare Part D plan works in phases (Initial Deductible, Initial Coverage, Coverage Gap or Donut Hole, and Catastrophic Coverage phase).
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:: Jump to Additional Medicare Plan Details
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Plan Cost Estimation without Entering Drug Information
How can you get a medication based Medicare plan comparison even if you do not know your medications? You can just skip the medication or prescription drug entry section and go to the Plan Finder summary. Medicare assigns a value to people without any prescription drugs based on their health (an annual prescription drug value of around $1,230). What if you really do not use any prescription drugs and just want the Medicare Part D plan with the lowest monthly premium? Then sort the Medicare plans by premium costs.
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:: Jump to Plan Cost Estimation without Entering Drug Information
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An Example Using Full Low-Income Subsidy (or LIS or Extra-Help)
If a person chooses Medicaid back in the financial options, the Medicare.gov Plan Finder will present a Medicare plan comparison for a Medicare beneficiary who receives "full" Low Income Subsidy (or LIS) benefits. As before, the Medicare plans will be organized in order of lowest cost, showing the plans that are able to offer the $0 LIS monthly premium based on the state's LIS benchmark premium.
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:: Jump to An Example using full LIS Status
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Here is the Big Picture: A View of the entire Medicare Plan Finder Process
Here is a general overview showing the complex Medicare.gov Part D Plan Finder System. Please notice that some screens or areas handle more than one decision. Also, some parts of the Medicare Plan Finder allow a user to go back and change information; However, other parts of the Plan Finder do not permit someone to change information once it is saved.
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:: Jump to an Overview of the Entire Medicare Plan Finder System
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Last updated on: 11/02/2011
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