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June 20, 2007Medicare Part D Plans Vary, but Most Appear to Cover Common Medications at Low Co-Payments |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: An examination of Medicare Part D plans in California and Hawaii reveals wide variations in drug formularies, but indicates that for many classes of drugs, it is possible to find at least one or more drug that is covered by nearly all Part D plans, according to a study in the June 20 issue of JAMA. Nearly 23 million of the 43.9 million eligible Medicare beneficiaries have enrolled in the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit, according to background information in the article. Because of the number and variety of plans, clinicians often find it difficult to know which drugs are covered by Part D plan formularies. Previous studies indicate that two-thirds of clinicians say they lack familiarity with Part D formularies, and three-fourths have been asked by pharmacies or patients to change a prescription to a different drug so that it would be covered by the patient's plan. Chien-Wen Tseng, M.D., M.P.H., of the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, and colleagues conducted a study to determine whether Part D formularies in California (the state with the most Medicare beneficiaries) and Hawaii have at least one drug within each of eight treatment classes for hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and depression that can be identified for clinicians as "widely-covered" by the vast majority of Part D plans. In an analyses of 72 formularies, the researchers found that coverage for 75 specific drugs ranged from 7 percent to 100 percent of formularies and averaged 69 percent across all drugs.
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