Medicare Extends Drug Enrollment Deadline

Failing to receive timely information about their current prescription drug plans from UnitedHealth Group and other suppliers, elderly Americans will get an extra 45 days grace period to choose their coverage for 2007, the U.S. government said on Thursday.

Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revealed that the enrollment deadline for the Medicare Part D drug plans has been extended until February 15, 2007.

The Medicare Part D is a federal program initiated on January 1, 2006 to provide prescription drugs at subsidized cost to Medicare beneficiaries in the United States. The plan also allows participants to enroll or change plans once a year.

Designed to help make prescription drugs more affordable for the elderly, many critics voted the plan as poor and intentionally designed to help pharmaceutical companies to maximize profits.

UnitedHealth is the biggest provider of Medicare drug plans with a customer base of 5.75 million people enrolled as on September 30.

“As UnitedHealth and some other providers failed to mail timely information to current enrollees so they could compare the cost and coverage of plans for 2007, the enrollees will get 45 more days to make a decision”, Herb Kuhn, acting deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said.

Meanwhile, experts say that people planning to enroll in a drug plan need to evaluate all the plans to find the one that is best for them. To find the right plan, people can contact Medicare or use the plan finder.

“Anybody who signed up for a plan last year must take a close look to see if their current plan is likely to meet their needs in 2007. This is important because people are going to be locked into their plan until the end of 2007”, Deane Beebe, communications director at the Medicare Rights Center added.

The drug plan finder will estimate the total annual cost for each plan, including the premium, the deductible, the co-pay and the coinsurance. The plans are sorted from least expensive to most expensive.

If one is satisfied with the current plan’s cost and coverage for next year and the customer service he receives, he doesn’t need to do anything, state Medicare officials.