Most people say, “Just tell me the best medicare prescription drug plans for 2023.” The truth is, it’s different for everyone because it goes by your zip code, your drugs, and what pharmacy you go to. In the video above, I show you how easy it is to get to where you can see your drugs in your zip code, and what the best plan part d drug plan is for you as an individual. At Medicare 365, we help you decide on a drug plan, so you dont have to go through this process alone.
Best Part D Plan
The first thing that you need to do is go to Medicare.gov, so hopefully you’re on a computer. If you’re not, pause the video, get on a computer and just go to Medicare.gov, because not only am I going to show you how to do it but I’ll show you some of the plans and the best part D plan here.
What are the best Medicare Part D plans?
Once you’re on Medicare.gov, you’re going to scroll down a little bit. You see this guy with the hat on. Right in the middle of his body you’ll see the second square, “Find health and drug plans”. You’re going to click on find plans now. This will take you to another screen that says, explore your Medicare coverage options. Now, no matter what year this is, whether it’s 2023 or whether it’s 2024 or 2025, if it looks like this you’ll just go, hit the year that you want to look at, and then you’ll click on to the right here, plan type. You’ll click on the arrow that’s going down. After this, it’ll be a dropdown that the second circle will say drug plan part D. I’ll click on that second circle, and then I’ll click apply. This will begin helping you to answer the question, “ What are the best Medicare part d plans.”
Now, you’ll go to the zip code box. You’ll click on that, and then you’ll click on your zip code. I’ll just put a zip code where I used to live. You’ll click in yours, and then we’ll click start. Now, the next page will say, help with your costs. Do you get help with your costs from one of these programs, Medicaid and so forth? You will go to the last circle and click, I don’t get help from any of these programs. Reason why I say that, even if you do, this will show you the costs without that help so you can always do that later. But for this, especially if you don’t get help, you want to click the last circle and then you will click next. Then it’ll come to a page that says, tell us your search preferences. Do you want to see your drug costs when you compare plans? The answer is yes. It’ll say great, and then you want to click on the next button.
This will take you to the page where you add your prescription drugs. This is the reason why I say you have to add your Medicare part d drugs to see what the best plan for you is. Now, the best plan for many people is different. For this particular video, I’m going to show you, if you take a couple of generic drugs, tier ones and so forth, I’m going to show you what the best plan is, and if you take a lot of drugs, when you click these in, it will show you what the best plan is for you, and I’m going to show you how you can get to that.
What is the most popular Medicare Part D plan?
Let’s just put in two very popular drugs. One is going to be a statin drug, whether it’s rosuvastatin or atorvastatin, but I’m going to put in simvastatin. I punch it in. As you see, once you put in four or five letters, the drug will pop up, and then you just click on the drug, put your cursor over, click on it, and then you click add drug over here, so hit add drug. Then we have to put in the doses. Once again, if you do not have your bottles with you or you don’t know the doses and so forth, go get your bottles, put this on pause and then go through this.
Now that we have your bottles and everything, you know the doses, you’ll click on this down arrow and it will show you all the doses. Let’s just say it’s 20 for simvastatin, and the quantity here says 45, but let’s say you take one a day so that would be 30 every month. I’m going to put that in. If you want to put in every three months you just hit that arrow and you can switch the months. I always do every month, only because, say you’re taking 90 every three months, I always do it once a month so I can see the numbers more clearly. Then I’m going to hit add to my drug list right here, so now you have your first drug in there. If you’re done adding your drugs, you can click this done adding drugs, but as you keep going it’s the same for every drug that you’re going to add, whether it’s one more or 10 more. You’re going to put this. Add another drug. It’s going to go back to the screen that you were on, and for this video I’m going to put in lisinopril.
As I put in the first four or five letters, it will pop up. Sometimes it won’t and it’s hard to find some of the drugs but, for most of them, it will pop up. I’ll hit add drug. I’ll put in the dose with the down arrow. Let’s say it’s 30 milligrams, eh, let’s say 20, and then it says 90 every month. I take one a day so I’m going to put 30. If you take two, put 60. Then I’m going to add to my drug list again. So for me, now my drug list is done. If you want to pause this video and keep adding more drugs by going here, add another drug, then do so and then we’ll go back to the next step.
What is the Best Medicare prescription drug plan?
The next step is done adding drugs, down here to the left. I’m going to click on that and it will take me to my next page that says, choose up to five pharmacies. Now, personally, when I’m doing a drug plan for somebody, I don’t choose five pharmacies. Most people know I go to this pharmacy and possibly this one so what I do is I scroll down a little bit and on the left here I always click mail order, then I click the two pharmacies that someone would go to. If they say, “Hey, I go to CVS,” I’ll click on that, and I’ll say, “Well, if you had to go somewhere else where would you go?” Well, sometimes I might go to Publix, that’s the grocery store, and it could be Rite Aid or whatever so I put those three in, mail order and the two pharmacies. You’re trying to find, “What is the best medicare prescription drug plan.”
Then I go down to, as you see on the bottom here, they’re listed. If I go all the way to the right, and I don’t know if my picture’s blocking this, but I’ll click done down here to the right and the next screen will come up, and these are the drug plans in your area. This says change the location, the plan type. I skip all of that and I just look at the plan.
Best Rated Part D Drug Plans
Here are two plans, WellCare and Silver Script which are not the best rated part d drug plans but definitley two of the most popular part d plans. Now, I’m going to focus on the first one, WellCare. As I go through, it says the name of the plan right here, the star rating, which I don’t really depend on that much, then it’s the monthly premium. Obviously, the monthly premium is going to be what you pay to WellCare each month to have that card or that plan. This one is going to be $11.20.
WellCare Value Script prescription drug plan
Now, keep in mind it’s WellCare Value Script PDP, which stands for prescription drug plan. There’s different WellCare plans that are different prices. This one’s $11.20 and the yearly drug and premium cost, this is your out of pocket, the total will be 134.40. Now, what that means is the drug premium is $11.20 times 12 months, obviously, but then how much is the copays for those drugs? Now, the drug deductible is $505 but, because I take two Tier One generics that are very inexpensive, I’m not going to worry about what the deductible is. Then on this other bottom row it has enroll, which you can enroll right here, the button right here if you like that. Plan details, which will take me to this one plan, or add to compare right here. Now, I’m going to compare a few plans so I’m going to click that and as you notice on the bottom it’s going to appear there.
I’m going to scroll down. This Silver Script I see, wow, the monthly premium’s only $8.40. The yearly drug and premium cost together is just a little bit more than WellCare and the deductible is the same. Let me compare this one, so I’m going to click add to compare again. Now, two of these plans are on the bottom. I don’t compare more than two at a time so I’m going to go to the bottom right and click the compare button down there. Once again, hopefully my picture’s not blocking it but that’s where the button will be. I click that, it will take me to a page where both of the plans are showing. A quick overview. I look at the plans. Wow, okay, all my pharmacies are preferred, in network preferred, says this is how much this one is. At Silver Script, $8.
Okay, let’s take a look at WellCare because that was the least out-of-pocket for the year. I’ll click on plan details and it will take me to this detail page. Now, keep in mind, you can always go back to plan comparison. You click the back button, then you go back to the screen. It can say back to plan results. You can always click going back but I’m just going to go with this plan details and take a look. With this WellCare Value Script, $11.20, as I scroll down it’s going to show me the premium, the deductible, the plan address, the drug coverage with the pharmacies. Like I said, they’re all preferred, in network. Sometimes it’ll say non-preferred or in-network but not preferred. Then it will say yearly cost by pharmacy. Well, these drugs, actually, the copay is right here and it’s zero, so zero, zero, and zero for the year for the drug cost.
The plan is $11 and, what, 40 cents? Times that by 12 and you’ll get 134 total year and drug cost so since the drug costs are zero, that’s going to be the plan cost. It says you will not meet your deductible in 2023. That’s why I’m not worried about the deductible. If you’re taking these inexpensive Tier One drugs, forget the deductible. Then you scroll down and you’ll see, “Hey, in January I’m going to pay nothing except for that $11.20. I don’t know if it was 11.40 or 11.20. That will go to WellCare Value Script, but there’s no drug cost for every month, zero copay. Now I’m going to scroll back up because I like this plan if I was doing this, but I want to check out the other plan so I’m going to go back to plan comparison. I can even go back to plan results.
I can click on plan details for SilverScript choice right here or I can go back to Plan Results and it will show Silver Script down here either way so I’ll just click on plan details down here. Now, once again, there’s an enroll button on the right here. If you see these plans and there’s a non-member number that you can call and say, “Hey, I’m interested in this plan, talk to me, tell me about it.” But for this, I’m going to scroll down and I’m going to see, okay, my CVS and everything is in Network Preferred, but wait, so this drug cost $8.40 but the lisinopril costs me 24 for the year. This is yearly drug cost by pharmacy. Same thing with the simvastatin, so it’s $2 per month.
Let’s scroll down. Total yearly and drug cost a little bit more than the WellCare, and that’s because each month I’m going to pay $4, which is absolutely nothing. I mean, it’s $4 each month, it’s not 140, so you’ll pay your drug plan. For this Silver Script it’s going to be, let’s scroll up real fast. You’ll pay them $8.40 a month. Then, if you scroll down you pay for the copay at the pharmacy $4. Let’s scroll back up and let’s just say you want to enroll. You would click this button here on the right. It will say join plan, and then boom, you’re off to the races. You’ll put in your Medicare information. It will go through, it’ll have you put in an email, and it will give you a confirmation number if you want to do it here. You can always call an agent or you can call the company and sign up if you’re a little bit nervous doing it on your own.
WellCare vs Silver Script prescription drug plan
I hope this video helped. The best plans that I’ve seen throughout the country, especially if you’re taking a Tier One drug, take a look at the WellCare vs Silver Script, that’s what I’ve seen. But if you’re taking a lot of different drugs you have to punch them in because the drug plans are all over the place for different zip codes and what people are taking. Thanks for watching this video, I’ll see you at the next one. Please click on the next video up here to watch some of my other videos on a playlist, and also you’ll see a link in the description where you can see some of my other videos. Take care. Have a good one.
