As Medicare Fall Open Enrollment approaches, the time of year from October 15 to December 7 when people with Medicare can make changes to their coverage, the Medicare Rights Center submitted feedback and suggestions about a critical tool in making these decisions—the Medicare.gov Plan Finder.

Drawing on Medicare Rights’ experience helping callers on its national helpline use Plan Finder, overall, the recommendations aim to enhance clarity and flexibility within the tool. For example, our helpline callers continuously express a desire to reflect the weight of their individual preferences in the sorting and screening functions. Currently, a person can only sort plans by one category, which limits one’s ability to compare plans based on multiple variables.

Additionally, Medicare Rights believes it would be helpful to provide individually-tailored information on the summary/comparison results page. For example, the summary results show the range of cost sharing the plan employs, but, until one clicks through to see the plan details, there is no information about what the cost sharing will be for the beneficiary’s prescription drug list. Particularly where coinsurances (rather than copayments) are used, seeing usable, accurate information in dollar amounts about the range of expected costs on the plan comparison page would be useful.

For the in-depth list of Medicare Rights’ Plan Finder suggestions, view the chart outlining the recommendations.

Read the memo to CMS summarizing the suggestions.