UPDATE: After reading your response, I carefully went through and compared the new 2024 ANC with the 2023 ANC. What - a - mess! It all appears to be a cut and paste mess on top of a "document" that was never reviewed by someone with sense! If Wellcare sold electric kitchen knife sharpeners, their instructions would keep Urgent Care Centers busy!
The whole layout of the booklet is trash. The table of contents is ridiculous, there is no orderly flow to the booklet. A bottom of a right-hand page has some bracketed words. They are really the headings for the NEXT page's columns, that you see AFTER turning the page! No attention to page breaks. No attention to the flow of use, i.e., how you would actually USE the insurance!
The part I quoted earlier up-thread from the 2024 ANC was from the "Initial Coverage Stage" early in the booklet. But later in the booklet, there is a "Changes to the Deductible Stage". It turns out that the later "Deductible Stage" is in actuality BEFORE the "Initial Coverage Stage"... even though the "Deductible Stage" has coverage... got that?
Why didn't they just start out with the Deductible Stage, then move to the "Initial Coverage Stage", etc., like the insurance actually works?
Wellcare was, and is, a big provider of Medicaid. Maybe nobody READS documents there!
Anyway, it appears that in the what I will call the "Deductible not met stage", the user pays either $5 or $0 cost sharing for Tier 1 Preferred Drugs.
And either $10 or $5 for Tier 2 Generic drugs.
Both are less than 2023 cost sharing amounts.
For Tiers 3, 4, 5, and 6, the user pays full cost until the deductible is reached, which is the same verbiage as 2023.
So... it would seem that Wellcare has decided to grab the marketing spot for the lowest-priced Part D plan, undercutting the usuals. At this point, who knows what the formulary will look like, don't know the pharmacy network changes yet, either.
I have also found (not a new find!) that the names of some things mentioned in the ANCs do not line up with the Wellcare website, like never the two shall meet. I guess at Wellcare nobody looks or uses it.
For those looking up Wellcare on the Medicare website starting October 15th, I suggest waiting about two weeks before getting serious. In previous years, the first week+ of info was wrong and shifting. Eventually, they send settled info to Medicare, and then one can figure out by inputting your own test cases, Who are the Preferred Pharmacys, what drugs of interest are covered and pricing.
I used to use the Shingrix shot as a straw drug, not knowing what else to use, but now by Medicare edict, that shot is a freebie!
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