No Obamacare Penalty For Not Signing For Part D

Obamacare isn't going to add to any senior's legitimate worries about getting enough insurance. If you are on Medicare at all, you have insurance, and there won't be any penalty to pay with your income tax return the first time penalties are assessed, in 2015. However, 

Another Smart Move

If you can't find insurance to minimize your medication costs, maybe your doctor can help. If you are on a brand name drug now, ask your physician if you wouldn't do as well on a generic. If you are on an expensive medication, ask your doctor if you might do as well on a different, less expensive medication.

If you are taking a lot of prescription drugs, maybe three or four medications for diabetes and three or four medications for high blood pressure plus a couple of medications for heart health, for example, ask your doctor to take a serious look at whether you are over-medicated.

Uniquely in the world, Americans are given enormous numbers of prescriptions. It's rare for people over 65 not to take any medications at all. It's commonplace for people to take 3 to 5 medications every day. It's not even especially unusual for someone who has had a brush with catastrophic illness, a heart attack for example, to take 10 to 20 medications, and nurses in hospitals routinely dole out as many as 35 pills a day.

What Saves You Money Sometimes Also Saves Your Life

All those pills cost money. At the very least, you should not be taking medications that interfere with each other.

That's the reason doctors often ask their patients to bring the actual pill bottles of all their medications into the office with them, so the nurse or physician's assistant can see what you are actually taking, not just what they think you have been taking. Catching medication errors can literally save your life.

Buy in Bulk, with a Prescription

And don't forget that most medications are less expensive if you get a 90-day supply with each refill. Usually there is a 10 to 30% discount over buying your meds 30 days at a time. Foreign-educated doctors often forget to write recurring prescriptions for 90-day refills. You probably won't get the price break if your doctor doesn't specify that you get the full 3-month supply.

Closing the donut hole can be a daunting task, but Medicare offers tools that can help. We have linked them below. And even if you just won the lottery, make sure you are taking just the medications you need, make sure all your doctors know all the medications you take, and whenever possible, get all your meds at the same pharmacy.