Today's Habit
Write your prescription list on one page today, and put it where your plan's fall letter will land.
Every Part D comparison you make in October runs off that list — drug names, strengths, quantities, and the pharmacy you actually use. Without it, you'll compare premiums, because premium is the only number printed large enough to read. And premium is the smallest part of what a drug plan costs you. Formularies change. Tiers change. Your list mostly holds.
Start with the piece already fixed. The standard deductible rises $85 in 2027, from $615 to $700. A plan that waives the deductible on your tier is worth exactly that $85 to you — and you find out which plans do it by running your list. Everything above the deductible depends on your drugs, not on the average. Skip this and October becomes an hour of hunting through drawers, which is how a plan gets renewed by default.
- Open your pharmacy's app, or pull your last three receipts.
- For each prescription, write the drug name, the strength, and how much you get per fill.
- Add how often you refill it.
- Write down the pharmacy you actually use, by name and location.
- Put the page in an empty folder marked "Drug plan — October."
Ten minutes. And you reuse it every October after this one.
When it's done: one page, every prescription, sitting in the folder where your plan's letter will go (the letter is called the Annual Notice of Change, which nobody tells you).
