A Medicare prescription payment plan can help seniors afford their medications, but few know about it, say Philly researchers

The Medicare Prescription Payment Plan launched last year. It allows older residents to spread out the cost of their drugs over the course of a year by giving them an option to make smaller monthly payments.

This can be especially helpful for people who need expensive medications at the beginning of the year, when their annual deductibles have restarted and they must pay about $2,000 out of pocket before their insurance will cover the rest of their prescription costs.

“So, a patient who is using expensive medications for conditions like cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis could be facing thousands of dollars in annual out-of-pocket costs during the year, and a large chunk of those costs would occur earlier in the year when they start filling their first few prescriptions,” said Jalpa Doshi, the Leon Hess Professor in Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.