As Medicare Open Enrollment Nears, Seniors May Find Redesigned Website Is a Work in Progress

Starting today, seniors across the country can choose their best option for a 2020 Medicare plan by going online and using the redesigned Medicare.gov plan finder website. Many older adults, though, are finding fault with the redesign, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Users have complained about the omission of helpful features that the previous site had. The old site included plan sorting by total cost, while the upgraded site requires users to sort Medicare Advantage plans by premiums, then separately sort drug cost. "That makes it much more cumbersome, to add those numbers up and figure out which one will be the best value," said Murrysville, Penn., retiree Les Anticich. Another issue is that users can no longer probe prescription drug lists anonymously without re-inputting their drug list each time they return to the site — which raises privacy concerns. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last week started circulating a list of 14 Medicare.gov "improvements" that it plans to implement by today's launch, at least some of which either will or may address these complaints. CMS has since reinstated the combined premium-plus-drugs cost comparison feature. However, experts are skeptical that all of the promised improvements will be incorporated in time for the start of the Medicare open enrollment period.