Harvard Pilgrim Brings Its Part C Medicare Advantage Back to Worcester County

The Federal government has now released the 2014 information about public Part C Medicare Advantage health plans and Part D Standalone Prescription Drug plans. They are up and running on medicare.gov.

There appears to be 15 separate public Part C Medicare health plans available here in Worcester County for next year -- one more than in 2013 (but see Note). But its mostly the same insurers competing for your business: AARP, Blue Cross, Fallon, and Tufts except that a quick look at the new version of the Medicare Plan Finder for those of us in Milford says that the new Harvard Pilgrim Part C Medicare Advantage health plan -- called Stride (see lower red oval) -- will also be available here (but not in Essex and Middlesex counties, on the Cape and Islands, or anywhere west of Worcester county). The new Harvard plan is about to get a lot of publicity and advertising in Massachusetts so pay attention when the ads start.

Harvard had a state-wide Part C plan prior to 2011, then it left the market, and now it is apparently re-entering the market because of the popularity of Part C.  Harvard offered a Medigap supplement statewide in 2013 and probably will again in 2014. This Harvard Medigap plan is a competitor to private Blue Cross Medex insurance and not part of the public Part C Medicare Advantage program.

The other thing to watch for when you go on Medicare.gov is how you sort the plans. The web site will automatically sort Medicare health plans by what it claims is the "lowest estimated annual health and drug cost." But this feature really doesn't work for Part C because it's just a bunch of averages and doesn't know you (which is good from an identity protection point of view). So you may as well switch the sort to lowest monthly premiums (see upper red oval) and look at the public Part C health plans that way.

A couple of hints

• If instead you are looking at drug plans -- as opposed to health plans -- sorting by lowest estimated annual drug cost does make sense because the web site knows the drug list you entered (but it still does not know you)
• And until October 15, this is just a chance to check out the new plans. You cannot enroll until after October 15