Senior citizens can start signing up today for prescription drug coverage with Medicare, however, confusion about different plans and busy helpline numbers has left throngs of seniors anxious about making the right choice.

“I know a lot of people need help,” said Maxine Parsons with the Collier County Council on Aging and SHINE, a volunteer program in Florida where seniors help other seniors with health insurance issues.

The Medicare Part D plan takes effect Jan. 1 to provide upward of 40 million Medicare beneficiaries with government-subsidized drug coverage for the first time as part of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003.

Signing up for the drug coverage is voluntary. Seniors have until Dec. 30 to sign up for a plan to take effect Jan. 1, or they can wait until May 15 if they don’t need the drug benefit earlier, said Angela Fisher, community outreach manager for the Area Agency on Aging for Southwest Florida, based in Fort Myers, which offers a helpline number.

“They should not panic,” Fisher said. “That is what we are telling everyone. Don’t make a rash decision. You still have time even if you need Jan. 1 coverage.”

After May 15, seniors will have to wait until Nov. 15, 2006, to join and face a penalty of a premium increase of at least 1 percent per month for every month they waited to sign up. The higher premium lasts for as long as the senior is covered in a drug plan.

What’s causing uneasiness are the many plan choices, different premiums, copays and yearly deductibles offered from highly competitive insurance carriers that bid for a piece of the vast Medicare market. Insurers were given the go-ahead to start marketing their plans Oct. 1 through mass mailings, a media blitz and in the case of Humana, by rolling mobile homes into parking lots of Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores across the United States to pitch their plans to seniors.

“We receive approximately 300 phone calls a day,” Fisher said. “They don’t understand, they need help choosing, (they ask) what happens if they are on Medicaid. They are not sure of what’s going on. There seems to be a lot of confusion.”

Collier’s aging council is hosting an informational session today that is open to the public about the new Medicare Part D plan, in which speakers will include representatives from the aging council, SHINE and from the local office of the Social Security Administration. The forum will be held in the auditorium of the Norris Community Center, 755 Eighth Ave. S. in downtown Naples, and will include a question-and-answer session.

In Florida, 18 companies have been approved to market plans.

“There’s a little bit of resistance because it sounds complicated,” Charles Milsted, associate state director of community outreach for AARP in Tallahassee, said of seniors’ concerns. “I try to tell them, ‘Don’t give up, persevere. It’s going to be worth it.’”

The different plan choices are a result of competition from the private insurance market with the benefit of bringing lower costs to seniors, he said. For instance, eight plans available in Florida have monthly premiums of $20 or less, he said.

“That’s because of competition,” he said. “If it was government run, I’m not sure we would be able to get the prices down.”

A survey released last week from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health found that 73 percent of seniors said so many plans to choose from “makes it confusing and difficult to pick the best plan.”

When asked how well they understood Part D, about 61 percent, or more than six out of 10 seniors, said “not to well” or “ not at all,” according to the survey.

Causing even greater distress is the fear that low-income and very sick individuals who are on Medicare and Medicaid, called “dual eligibles” will face life-threatening lapses in access to their medications. About 6.4 million Americans are “dual eligibles,” where Medicaid has been paying for their medications but that ceases Jan. 1. If they don’t decide on their own for a Medicare drug plan, the federal government is responsible for automatically enrolling them into a plan.

A lawsuit filed Monday in federal district court in Manhattan by eight consumer advocacy groups around the U.S. seeks to force the federal government to establish an adequate and workable system to make sure dual-eligible beneficiaries are enrolled in drug plans with no lapse in access to their medications. Among the plaintiffs is the Medicare Rights Center, a New York-based independent health-care information source for Medicare beneficiaries.

The lawsuit against Michael Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, claims Leavitt has not established a system to make sure dual eligibles will be enrolled in plans. Specifically, the secretary has failed to address identification errors that will occur between the interplay of state and federal computer systems, has failed to notify dual-eligible individuals of their rights to choose their own plan, and points to a mistake published in the “Medicare and You” handbook addressing dual eligibles’ enrollment guidelines for not incurring monthly out-of-pocket charges, among other issues.

AT A GLANCE

Medicare beneficiaries with questions about the new Part D prescription drug benefit are encouraged to attend an information session today at the Norris Community Center, 755 Eighth Ave. S., Naples. The session begins at 1:30 p.m. in the auditorium and is sponsored by the Collier County Council on Aging in conjunction with the SHINE program, which helps seniors with health insurance issues. Questions will be taken from the audience. Seating is limited to 150.

For help understanding Part D, which takes effect Jan. 1, seniors can call the Area Agency on Aging for Southwest Florida at 1-866-413-5337, or they can the local SHINE office in Naples at 530-3364, ext. 230. Seniors will need to leave their name and telephone number for a return call. Another option is to call the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid at 1-800-MEDICARE, or go to the Web site www.medicare.gov.

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