What a time to try out a major website overhaul: during the one time of year you can change your health plan. Medicare made major revisions to it’s “Plan Finder” this year that has made it WAY MORE DIFFICULT for users. First, your old drug list can be retrieved with your “drug list ID,” but you can no longer run your list in the plan finder. You now have to register and create a new list. More troubling is that the default sort on the plans is by “lowest premium.” The old default was by lowest premium and estimated cost. This sorted by overall lowest projected cost. These are huge flaws that Medicare created and has not fixed right during the annual election period. When testing anything new, you generally should do that during less important times in case your new widget does not work that well, which is the case with medicare.gov in 2019.
Luckily there are ample qualified agents to help seniors at no cost to them. Whether it is a local independent agent, your State’s volunteers (generally called SHIIP volunteers (see www.shiptacenter.org)) or a trusted friend, if you are not familiar with the new plan finder, find someone to help you make the right decision for your Medicare plan in 2020.
Here is more information on the topic from the AP: https://apnews.com/bb510242893c4e37800f0020285fab84