Beginning in mid-October, people with Medicare will have new and enhanced tools to help them learn more about their Medicare health care coverage, including comparative information about the services provided by their Medicare prescription drug plans. In addition, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported that nearly all exceptions and appeals filed by people with Medicare were decided within seven days as required by CMS guidelines. As part of the My Health. My Medicare. initiative, beneficiaries and those who are assisting them have access to new and enhanced tools to help them get the most out of their Medicare benefits. These new tools will enable beneficiaries to do things such as track their benefits, compare cost across multiple plans, and learn about important preventive and screening services. Since the beginning of the prescription drug benefit, CMS has been tracking complaint rates to Medicare and they are declining. In July, CMS received approximately 1.4 complaints per 1,000 Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in prescription drug plans about those plans compared to a rate of 1.7 per 1,000 that CMS received in June. Prescription drug plan call centers continue to answer both beneficiary calls and pharmacist calls promptly, with almost all plans answering in less-than two and-a-half minutes. CMS has also been tracking plan performance on the appeals process. Since January, there have been less than 0.5 reconsideration (2nd level appeal) requests per 1000 beneficiaries. Nearly all reconsideration requests filed by people with Medicare were decided within seven days as required by CMS guidelines. Recent studies of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in prescription drug plans report that the majority of them are satisfied with the program. Among a number of reasons that beneficiaries are satisfied with their plans is that they are seeing cost-savings on their prescription drugs. In an update to a study of savings on a wide range of commonly used sets of drugs, CMS found that beneficiary savings continue to remain high. For common groupings of drugs, beneficiaries can save from 44 to 72 percent through a range of available plans. Beneficiaries who switch to generic drugs are seeing savings of as much as 76 percent and even savings of up to 82 percent for beneficiaries who also switch to lower cost therapeutic alternative brand name drugs. The press release and fact sheet, available through the links below contain more information on these topics. In addition, an updated report on available savings has been posted on CMS' website and is available through the link below.
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