Medicare Part D: A Case Study

Words: 841
Pages: 4

For those that are currently on Medicare, they should be relatively familiar with what parts B and D cover. Medicare Part B covers services like doctor visits, laboratory tests and procedures along with medical supplies like wheelchairs. It covers those things that are medically necessary to treat a health condition. This part of Medicare also covers preventative services where patients do not pay anything out of pocket as long as the provider accepts the assignment. Medicare Part D was created in order to cover prescription medication costs and it is supposed to work with other insurance plans. Although it is designed to offset the costs of medications for this population, this does not mean that it will cover everything. For example, if a person is fully covered by Medicaid and lives in a nursing home, they do not have to pay anything when it comes to medications. However, if a person is fully covered by Medicaid and lives in an assisted living or adult facility or even in their own home, there is a small copayment for each medication the person is on. There is no definition as what can be considered to be a small amount. …show more content…
Although it did cost the federal government $62 billion to cover the expenses just a few short years after its implementation, it has been able to cover the all of the costs for most of its recipients. Under the program, numerous private suppliers compete for recipients to enroll in their programs, which have been both a key and dubious element of the extensive scale open protection program (Ketcham, Lucarelli, Miravete & Roebuck, 2012). The justification of the program is to utilize rivalry as a way to control costs and give beneficiaries the chance to pick the arrangement that is financially right for