Medicare.gov is government website dedicated serving both Medicare recipients and those looking to enroll in Medicare. It is a consumer-friendly, interactive website that provides comprehensive information on health plan options, costs, quality of care, and benefits.
With nearly 40 million Americans covered, Medicare is the nation’s largest health insurance provider. Medicare.gov experiences an extremely high volume of traffic, with more than 1.75 million page views per week. Site visitors to Medicare.gov take advantage of these resources on average more than 670,000 times every month. As the deadline for choosing a prescription plan approached in the spring of 2006, as many as 5,269,300 visitors accessed the Medicare.gov site every day.
Prominent on the home page is Medicare Spotlights, which includes the latest news in Medicare’s prescription drug program. This section displays several links to pages that show important dates and Medicare’s toll-free number, along with instructions on when and how to obtain prescription drug coverage. These pages allow you to compare prescription drug plans, check prescription enrollment status, enroll, and access drug and pharmacy information.
Visitors to Medicare.gov can also click on a number of other features, including Prescription Drug Plan, which has all of the latest information on Medicare’s prescription drug plan; Medicare & You 2006, a summary of the most frequently asked questions and answers; Medicare Claims, Appeals Information, and Medicare Summary Notices; Long Term Care, which includes medical and non-medical expenses of long-term care; and Plan Choices, which outlines Medicare’s different plans and coverages. More of this website’s features are outlined in detail below.
My.Medicare.gov
This new service grants Medicare recipients access to their personalized information regarding benefits and services. Registration to MyMedicare.gov is quick and easy. Once registered, users have the following capabilities, among others:
• View claim status
• Order replacement Medicare cards
• View eligibility, entitlement, and preventive services information
• View enrollment information, including prescription drug plans
• View pharmacy information
• Access online forms, publications, and messages sent by CMS.
Find a Physician
Located toward the bottom of the page, this useful link helps Medicare recipients locate physicians close to them. Search for a physician by geography (within a specific city), by proximity (within a certain distance of a specific location), or by name. The next step asks the specialty of the physician you are looking for. A list of physicians then comes up with information, including the specialty of the doctor, education, gender, and hospital affiliations. Addresses with maps and directions are also provided, once a physician is zeroed-in.
Preventative Services
The link to this section is on the left-hand side of the Medicare home page. This section provides information about preventative services available to Medicare recipients. Among the topics covered in this section are cardiovascular screening, cancer tests, shots, diabetes screening, bone mass measurements, glaucoma tests, and physical exams.