HCFO Findings Brief: Should Healthy Medicare Beneficiaries Postpone Enrollment in Part D?

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HCFOfindings1108no9.pdf

Is it cost-effective for “healthy” Medicare beneficiaries, who do not regularly take prescription drugs, to enroll in Part D as soon as they are eligible? Bryan Dowd, Ph.D., and colleagues examined the differences in lifetime out-of-pocket prescription drug expenditures and found that total lifetime expected out-of-pocket costs are minimized if healthy 65-year-old Medicare beneficiaries enroll in Part D immediately upon eligibility rather than waiting until they contract a drug-intensive condition. Learn more in the HCFO Findings Brief.