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Comparing Medicare health and prescription drug plans can be complicated. Keep in mind these 4 things to make your plan choice easier with the Medicare Plan Finder.

1. Total cost for care. It’s important to think about your total out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles,copayments, coinsurance, maximums, and drug costs, that you’ll pay with a Medicare health or drug plan. When you compare plans with Medicare Plan Finder, we’ll explain these costs and help you find plans with the lowest costs. We’ll also automatically show you plans with the lowest drug and premium costs first.
2. Provider choice. Some plan types have a network of providers you’ll have to use if you want to pay less. Medicare Plan Finder lets you filter your results by plan type, and explains how each plan type lets you choose providers. If you have a particular doctor or pharmacy that you prefer to go to, see if that plan has a network. If it does, check that your provider is in the plan’s network. You might also want to make sure that your plan’s network has providers to choose from that are convenient to you.
3. Benefits. Many Medicare Advantage Plans include prescription drug, vision, hearing, and dental coverage. Maybe you travel a lot, or spend part of the year in a different state. If you do, see if your plan will cover you when you travel. When you use Medicare Plan Finder, you can view, filter, and compare these benefits.
4. “Overall Star Rating.” Medicare Plan Finder features a star rating system for Medicare health and drug plans. The “Overall Star Rating” gives an overall rating of the plan’s quality and performance for the types of services each plan offers. A plan can get a rating between 1 and 5 stars. A 5-star rating is considered excellent. If a Medicare Advantage Plan, Medicare drug plan or Medicare Cost Plan with a 5-star rating is available in your area, you can use the 5-star Special Enrollment Period (once a year) to switch from your current Medicare plan to a Medicare plan with the 5-star rating.

Visit the Medicare Plan Finder to start comparing 2021 Medicare health and drug plans now.

Originally posted on Medicare.gov