Proposed changes on Medicare drugs create winners and losers
Source: AP news
The Trump administration on Monday proposed changes to Medicare’s prescription drug benefit that would affect patients’ costs over the next few years, creating winners and losers.
The proposals apply to two popular parts of Medicare: private Medicare Advantage plans that offer comprehensive health care coverage, and prescription drug plans also offered by private insurers. Changes would not take place until 2020 at the earliest.
Among the changes:
— More leeway for insurers to exclude a specific drug in Medicare’s six “protected classes” of medications. Those classes include antidepressants, drugs to treat psychosis, anti-seizure medications, cancer drugs, medications to prevent rejection of transplanted organs, and HIV-AIDS drugs.
— Giving Medicare Advantage insurers the ability to require “step therapy” for drugs administered in a doctor’s office, which means patients first have to try a lower-cost medication. Doctor-administered drugs are a sensitive issue because many are cancer medications.
Read more: https://www.apnews.com/3bd64e35b6bf4b78aa05cb7310700244
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