Questions coming your way: educate seniors about Medicare discount card.(Practice Trends)

Patients with a million questions on the new Medicare drug card programs will be presenting at your office any day now--will you be ready?

Starting this month, Medicare beneficiaries, except those with Medicaid drug coverage, will be able to sign up for a Medicare-approved prescription drug discount card. The cards will go into effect in June and can be used until the full prescription drug benefit under Medicare takes effect on Jan. 1, 2006.

"Patients may start to talk more to their doctors about drug costs as these cards become available," said Tricia Neuman, vice president and director for Medicare policy work at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

In fact, Medicare officials are counting on doctors to help get their patients enrolled in the drug discount card program, Dr. Mark McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said at a press conference in Washington sponsored by the Health and Human Services Department. "When health professionals get involved, we can do much better," he said.

Both the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Family Physicians are girding for the onslaught of questions by preparing materials that physicians can share with their patients to better explain the new Medicare-endorsed drug cards. For physicians who are used to dealing with an under-65 population with formularies, the process of prescribing should be similar, said Dr. Michael O. Fleming, AAFP president.

But there's still real confusion among both patients and physicians about how the drug discount card program will work, Dr. Fleming said.

Seniors should choose a discount card based on which cards are available in their area and which drugs they take, said Elinor Ginzler, manager of independent living and long-term care at AARP.