Medicare drug benefit tips: 7 key things doctors need to know

Enrollment in the new program starts in a few weeks. How are you going to answer your patients' questions?

By David Glendinning, AMNews staff. Oct. 3, 2005.

Fall has arrived, and that means the Medicare prescription drug plans are off and running.

Starting now with the help of their families and the physicians that take care of them, beneficiaries will work to decide how -- or whether -- to sign up for what many are calling the biggest change to hit the health program since its inception. Seniors and people with disabilities face a variety of economic and practical considerations as they prepare to enter a new era of Medicare outpatient drugs.

Here are seven points that may help doctors determine what role they can -- or wish -- to play in this process. Still, no matter what level of involvement physicians decide to take, it's a given that all doctors should decide how they will handle patients' questions.

In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, most seniors said they first would ask for their physicians' counsel in deciding whether to enroll in a Medicare drug plan. Federal officials overseeing the rollout of the new benefit say doctors need to prepare accordingly.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is asking doctors and their staffs to bone up on the basics of the benefit in advance of this fall's initial enrollment period. The more physicians know about what the government is offering seniors, the better off everybody will be when the inevitable first questions start coming up in the exam room, the agency said in a recent article to doctors.