I ran my medications through medicare.gov and the plans from WellCare, the Classic (PDP) and Value Script (PDP), showed drastically different total costs!
I dug into the plans down to the drug level, and I found out the following, which made me do The Dance of Joy:
One of my drugs is a Tier 3 generic for Value Script, but NOT COVERED by Classic! I checked WellCare’s formularies online for these two plans, and saw that medicare.gov was wrong. I called Wellcare to confirm and they told me they were aware of the medicare.gov error. In reality, that drug is Tier 2 generic for Classic.
WOW.
Another one of my drugs is not on the Classic Formulary, but Tier 4 generic on Value. However, Mark Cuban is even cheaper than Value, so I’m going to go use Classic in order to get Tier 2 on the other drug, and just punt one of them to Mark Cuban.
AND OH… my Tier 1 drugs are cheaper at CVS, Walgreens, Kroger, Safeway than they are at the overall low-cost local independent pharmacy. Cheaper overall, but if I split my meds between independent and major retailer, then I optimize the situation.
So three pharmacies. Independent, major retailer, and Mark Cuban. I had hoped to sole-source everything and make life easier, but it’s not going to happen.
I guess the moral of the story is if something stinks and seems wrong, stay curious and keep pulling on the loose threads until you learn something.
On the plus side, both WellCare plans are $0 premium, and have 3.5 star reviews, which sounds low, but other plans are 2 stars. I found the WellCare supervisor to be very helpful, the 1st line help desk not so much, they were “offshore and clueless”. My total Rx spend is going to end up being quite low per med per month, only a few Dollars.
Wife and I already settled on the AARP-United Healthcare Medicare Supplement. We applied, were accepted, payment method set up, cards on the way… coverage starts in 2026.