Medicare Plan Finder is Broken

The Medicare Plan Finder for 2020 is hopelessly broken. CMS decided it was time for an overhaul. Make the Plan Finder more user friendly.

The Medicare brain trust says that 70% of seniors are tech savvy. Sure, they may be able to check email, watch videos of the grandchildren on Facebook and even order from Amazon.

But how many TRULY understand Part D and can find a drug plan without help?

Crickets . . .

How Does the Plan Finder Work?

Let’s look at what CMS did to the “new, improved Medicare drug plan finder.

To use the new Medicare Plan Finder you should establish an account.

• login using MyMedicare username & password
• Change password every 2 years (formerly every 60 days)
• Must be different from previous 6 password’s – can you remember password from 12 years ago?
• Can’t contain username, SSN or Medicare number
• Volunteers and agents prohibited from storing your login information
• Do NOT share your login and password with anyone you do not know or trust
• Anyone who has your login info can see claims, Rx complete 3 yr history, name, address and Medicare number

What could possibly go wrong?

How do you like it so far?

But Wait – There’s More

Drug history automatically imports from MyMedicare when you are logged in

• Imports drugs on file with medicare.gov
• Does not include paid by cash 
• Generic pricing may not be accurate or useful
• You are unable to view preferred pharmacy pricing
• If you forget your login must remember answers to security questions
• Cannot create an account without a Medicare number – New to Medicare? You won’t have your number.
• The folks at 800 Medicare use the same plan finder.
• They can’t help you either . . .

We have seen this movie before.

Remember Obamacare and Healthcare.gov?

When healthcare.gov rolled out DC had been working on it for 5 years.

It was virtually useless, had MAJOR security flaws, and impossible to navigate unless you were trained.

There were approximately 20 million people seeking information on plan options. Contrast that with over 50 million who will be using the site during a 9 week period.

What could possibly go wrong?

Hackers Paradise

Healthcare.gov was miserably broken out of the gate and was “closed” for several hours at a time while they tried to patch it.

As recently as 2018 healthcare.gov was hacked, again, exposing private data on 75,000 people.

It has been hacked NUMEROUS times since it went public.

Surely you can’t be serious?

I am serious and don’t call me Shirley . . .

Is there any reason to believe the Plan Finder and Blue Button will be any better?

The new Medicare Plan Finder has so many flaws that I don’t feel safe making plan choice suggestions for my clients. Instead, I will be referring all clients to an agency that will handle this for me.