01/11/2012
Individual and Medigap members to receive notice of Medicare Part D creditable coverage status
As you know, health plans that provide prescription drug coverage are required to send a Medicare Part D creditable coverage notice to members at the time they become eligible for Medicare and during the Annual Election Period each year. We recently discovered that a notification process was disabled during a system transition, and as a result we haven't been providing the required creditable coverage notices to our Individual and Medigap members.
We've notified the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) of this error, and they're allowing us to offer a special enrollment period. Medicare-eligible members will be allowed to enroll in a Medicare prescription drug plan between Feb. 1, 2012, and April 3, 2012. To be eligible for coverage under this special enrollment period, we must receive applications no later than 5 p.m. on April 3, 2012.
To be eligible for our Part D prescription drug plans, a member needs Medicare Part A and/or Part B. To be eligible for our Medicare Advantage plans with Part D a member must have Part A and Part B.
Beginning the week of Jan. 16, 2012, we'll mail letters to impacted members to explain the situation and offer the special enrollment period.
Sample letters:
We've corrected the issue that led to this unfortunate situation and feel confident that the appropriate creditable coverage notifications will be sent to our members in the future.
If you have any questions or need any support, please call your Regence sales executive or Individual and Medicare Sales Producer Support at 1 (800) 557-0555.
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