How to Compare Part D Drug Plans Yourself

Open the Medicare plan finder

Go to medicare.gov/plan-compare. This is the government's own tool. It is free, it is the same data every agent sees, and there is no catch.

Be careful about what you click to get there. Search "medicare part d" and the top results are usually ads from lead-generation companies that look official and are not. Type the address in directly.

Enter your ZIP code

Plans are sold county by county, so the tool needs to know where you live before it can show you anything real. A plan advertised on Boise television may not be sold in Canyon County at all.

Choose Medicare Drug Plan (Part D)

It will ask what kind of coverage you are looking for. Pick Drug plan (Part D), the standalone one.

Do not pick Medicare Advantage here. That is a different product that bundles your medical and drug coverage together, and if you are on Original Medicare or a Supplement, choosing it by accident will drop you out of the coverage you already have.

Sign in, or do not. Either works.

You can create a Medicare.gov account so your drug list and pharmacies are saved for next year, which saves you about twenty minutes every October. You can also skip it entirely and keep going as a guest.

If you would rather not make another account and another password, skip it. It changes nothing about the results.

Type in your medications, one at a time

This is the step that decides whether the whole exercise was worth doing. For each prescription the tool wants four things, and all four are printed on the pharmacy label:

• The drug name
• The dosage, meaning the strength, like 20 mg
• The form, like tablet, capsule or liquid
• How much you take per month

Get these right. A wrong strength or a wrong monthly quantity changes the estimated cost of every plan on the list, and it changes it quietly. If you are not sure, go get the bottles. It is worth the trip to the cabinet.

Add the pharmacies you actually use

You can enter up to five. Add the ones you genuinely go to, plus mail order if you would consider it.

This matters more than most people expect. The identical plan can charge you noticeably different amounts for the identical drug depending on whether your pharmacy is in its preferred network. Same plan, same pill, different counter.

Sort by lowest drug and premium cost

Once your drugs and pharmacies are in, sort the results by lowest total cost rather than by premium alone.

The cheapest premium is very often not the cheapest plan. A $0 plan that does not cover one of your drugs can cost you more over a year than a $40 plan that does.

Open the top few plans and actually read them

Do not stop at the sorted list. Open the two or three cheapest and check:

• The deductible, and whether it applies to your drugs or only to certain tiers. For 2027 no plan may charge more than $700, and plenty charge less or nothing.
• The estimated total for the year, drugs plus premiums together. That is the number that matters.
• Your pharmacies, and whether each one is listed as preferred, standard, or not in the network.
• Your drugs, and whether any of them carry a restriction like prior authorization or step therapy. That means paperwork before the plan will pay.

Enroll, and do it before December 7

When you have picked one, the tool walks you through enrolling right there. You do not need an agent and you do not need to call anyone.

October 15 through December 7 is the window, and coverage starts January 1. Do not leave it until the first week of December when every call center in the country is backed up.