Greetings:
The Annual Election Period is in full swing and this morning Icompleted Client prescription review #100. That’s right 100 of our Medicare Coach Team members have returned their membership renewal prescription information and we were able to save this group more than $40,300 in annual savings, and we’ve only been at it for the last 8 days. That’s an average of about $403 per person. We have saved our clients about $304,000 dollars since the Medicare Coach program was launched on January 1, 2010.
You might be wondering “where is this money coming from”? Below is a brief summary of some of the places where we are finding the money to reduce your costs.
The Premium Savings Move:
In the State of Kansas, there are 31 Individual Part D prescriptionplans offered by about 15 Insurance companies. Premiums range from $15.10 all the way up to a high of $117.80. The savings potential for any given client could be as high as $102.70 per month or about $1232 per year. During these early reviews , I’m finding annual premium savings in the $100-3000 range. This morning I saved a client about $2000 in annual premium by moving from an old Medicare Supplement Plan I that has been discontinued and would continue to escalate in cost . I was able to find a Plan for $69 per month which included prescription coverage with no deductible and $7 co pays for generics. We were able to save about $1500 in prescription co-pay cost reductions with the new plan compared to the old plan.
The Alternate Prescription Move:
The primary generic moves can add up anywhere from $400-500depending on the medication. You can put about $500 in your pocket by finding alternatives for Diovan, Lipitor, Benicar, Singulair and a host of other money makers for the pharmaceutical companies. Pfizer made $10 billion on Lipitor alone during 2010. I hear Lipitor is going generic in December, but that’s not been confirmed. Seniors are leaving thousands of dollars on the table by using brand name medications when alternate medications are available in the same class. Diovan is called an ARB (angiotensin tensin receptor blocker) and is in the same class of Micardis, atacand, avapro benicar, Hyzaar and Avalide. There is a generic available in this class that provides the same therapeutic function. Diovan co pays are about $500.. the mystery generic co pay is about $7 or no copy with some of the new plans if you get it at a preferred pharmacy. That mystery generic is in my Medicare Coach playbook.. and I’ve already saved clients thousands of dollars with just this one move. And, I made the move on myself. When I showed my doctor the cost difference, a new prescription was faxed to my pharmacy and I was smiling all the way to the pharmacy to pick up the new medication knowing that I just saved $500 bucks.
The Formulary Change Move:
Yesterday a client sent in her meds and after my analysis , I discovered that her Plan would no longer cover a drug called Diltiazem-HCL ER, although it was covered as a $7 co pay generic during 2011. The company put the new cost of this medication at $113 per 30 day supply. I found another carrier that listed this same drug in the Tier 1 class and had it marked as a retail cost of $20.70. So instead of keeping the existing plan, we changed to the new plan with no deductible, a $7 co pay at a non preferred network pharmacy and no co-pay at a preferred pharmacy. There’s a company that has teamed up with Target , Wal-Mart, and Walgreens to offer a zero deductible plan with no co-pays for tier 1 generics. Bingo! This client just saved $1356 by having her plan reviewed since she was already using one of the preferred pharmacies. So a $50 membership renewal netted big bucks in this case.
These are examples of how our program works. New members pay$160 fee to join and in almost all cases, I’m able to find ample savings to pay this fee. Then the member has an option to renew their membership for $50 each same household, or $60 for an individual household. Renewal members received their billing reminders a few weeks ago and now the prescription information is filtering in to our office each day. We are busy beavers right now.. this is like Medicare Tax Season.
If you are one of our renewal members who received an emailevaluation and recommendation from me during the past week, please take action now to let me know if you agree with our recommendations. So far I’ve heard from 59 out to the 100 members who were contacted (most by email and a few by snail mail). Please don’t wait. Get back to me and we’ll make the changes.
Thanks again for your great support of our Coach program. It’s thefirst of its kind in the Nation. If you don’t believe me go to Google and type in Medicare Coaching advice..and up pops our blog and website… even AARP is one notch below. The majority of Medicare plans are being delivered via the product approach.. buy my mouse trap.. we use process and not product and that’s why the savings for our members continues to mount.
Coach
