Medicare beneficiary's use of prescription drug discount cards, CY 2002.

The recently enacted Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, authorizes the implementation of the Medicare-Approved Drug Discount Card Program. This program is designed to help people in Medicare with the cost of prescription drugs. In the past several years as prescription drugs have increased, a number of Medicare beneficiaries have begun to use drug discount cards for out-of-pocket expenditures. In the latter part of CY 2002, the MCBS began collecting data about the use of discount cards to purchase prescriptions. These cards are not health insurance instead they provide discounts on health services not covered by health insurance. This highlight utilizes data collected in fall 2002 to examine the acquisition of prescription drug discount cards by the Medicare population. At that time, roughly 5 percent of non-institutionalized beneficiaries reported having prescription discount cards. Another 2 percent of beneficiaries report health insurance plans that appear to be discount cards from their name.