Many Senior Citizens Eligible for Medicare Extra Help program.

Senior citizens are among the latest victims of the slowing economy because many don’t know they’re eligible for extra help with one of their biggest expenses — medicine.

Once Medicare has paid  out a certain amount for Part D prescription drug coverage, seniors hit the “gap” and have to pay full price.  They’re going back to splitting or sharing pills and doing without some medicines so they have money to eat, said Debbie Morrissey, who counsels seniors through the Southwest Missouri Office on Aging.. “I would say starting around July or August, we started

 getting calls and saw people coming in who were falling into the gap,” she said. “They’ll come in and say they can’t afford their medicines.”
Yet, some 1,730 seniors may be eligible for a program, “Extra Help,”  but don’t know it.  Extra Help is a program that will pay 75 percent to 100 percent of their prescription costs and monthly Part D premiums — whether they’re in and out of the gap. Seniors can apply for Extra Help through any Social Security office. The Social Security Administration estimates that Extra Help with Part D costs can save an individual up to $3,600 annually.

“For some, it pays everything,” said Matt Heger, with Primaris, Medicare’s quality improvement arm in Missouri. “Seventy-five percent is the low end … 95 percent is what it typically ends up paying, and it could reduce it to nothing.”  (Seniors receiving both Medicare and Medicaid benefits are automatically signed up for Part D Extra Help, Heger said.)

Eligibility for Extra Help is based on income and assets such as bank account and bonds. A person’s home or car are not considered assets under this program, according to Medicare guidelines.  Eligible individuals can earn up to $15,840 annually and have resources at or below $11,990. Married couples are eligible if they earn no more than $21,240 annually and their resources don’t exceed $23,970.

Medicare has identified the number of potential eligibles by ZIP code in each county. Now senior advocates are targeting those areas to get more people signed up, Heger said.  Various groups like Southwest Missouri Office on Aging, CLAIM, AIDS Project of the Ozarks and Social Security Administration can help people enroll.

Parts of this article were reprinted from NewsWire article.