Step 3: Drug Plans - Be Sure That You Have
the Right Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plan

Important items - Cost "tiers" and the "formulary" << what drugs are in each tier

» AN IMPORTANT TERMINOLOGY. You'll come across important terms as you read through the suggestem steps, below. A few of them:
 • Formulary: A list of all the drugs covered by the plan your considering. If an important drug is not there, you should consider a different plan.
 • Tiers: Drugs are grouped into tiers as presented in the formulary. Each tier has a different co-pay or percentage reimbursement. When you use the steps below, you'll be able to calculate the different costs for different plans.
 • Generics: these are unbranded drugs and are usually presented in the least-costly tier.
 • Brand name drugs : Generally these are more expensive than generics and will likely appear in more expensive tiers. Different drug plans may assign name-brand drugs to different cost tiers.
 • Coverage gap (or the "donut hole"): When the actual costs of your drugs (not your out of pocket costs) reaches a certain threshold, you will be paying considerably more for your drugs. The calculators in the verious steps below help calculate those costs.

» One special note: Alcatel-Lucent does not allow you to drop the Medco Rx plan unless you also drop their health care plan. Since the Medco plan has higher co-payments than some other plans, you should calculate the cost differences because these can well enter your decision as whether or not to stay with Alcatel-Lucent.

Three Steps to Calculate Cost Differences

» First :: Calculate commercial plans at medicare.gov. Commercial plans are posted at medicare.gov. Once there, follow the instructions to the plan results page. Note that there are separate entries for two different types of prescription drug plans:
    •  Standalone PDP plans with a monthly premium
    •  PDP plans that are integrated with a Medicare Advantage plan
To help you record the differences, the Benefits Team has prepared a tracking sheet. To compare all the plans do the following:
    •  Download and print the BenefitsTeam tracking sheet.
    •  Then follow Medicare's instructions for completing the tracking sheet.

» Second :: Calculate the Medco plan. The Medco Part D cost calculator is available at their web site. Click here for the Medco site.  You can call Medco for help at (800) 230-0512. When you have complete the calculation, add the results to the tracking sheet from the first step.

» Third :: Compare the differences. The Benefits Team tracking sheet has a table to log the differences for your comparison. Use them when you compare the differences between the total monthly premium of the Alcatel-Lucent plan can commercial plans..

» Special note about the "formulary": All Part D plans publish a "formulary" that includes which drugs are included in their plan and in which Tier they are available. To understand why the drug costs are different, it is important to check their formulary on their web site.