Nasty surprise from Medicare today

[Ms. Toad]

25. Ouch!

The massive charge was probaly your annual deductible (ours is around $500 this year - which my spouse spent on Jardiance). The next bills should be lower.

But - your plan may be heading you toward the donut hole. Look for the total cost (paid by insurance and by you). If it really is that high, consider using GoodRx and/or Costco for prescriptions. (The mail order doesn't require local access to a Costco). Not knowing your precise prescription, it looks like it's about $25 for 30 -30 mg tablets. Costco price is similar.

We buy more than half of our prescriptions through Costco because it is cheaper buying them at Costco retail prices than to use insurance. I wish I had known about that option before I hit Medicare age.

I do a spreadsheet every year in October comparing all plans - and comparing the plan cost to the Costco cost. There's one drug that costs $1400 through some of the insurance plans but only about $50 through Costco. These plans change their formularies about every other year (in my experience). They lure you in with cheaper drugs the first year - then figure you'll stop checking and just stick with them. They also don't assume you will even consider GoodRx or Costco, or other non-insurance options. It is a royal pain, but we save thousands every year.

Seriously - even if you have a plan that is not being discontinued (which seems like what happened here), check your plan every year. We switched one of our plans this year because a different one was cheaper overall (premium + known medical costs).