Here are a few tip to make the process a little less frustrating.

1. Click on Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Finder.

2. Scroll down to the Personalized Search and enter your information.

3. As you enter your medications, copy down the Drug List ID and Password when the window pops up. This will come in handy should that list suddenly disappear which happened to me.

4. If you’re only interested in Medicare Part D Prescription Plans, check the first option Prescription Drug Plans (with Original Medicare).

5. If you take medications consistently and don’t mind mail order, scroll down to Prescription Drug Plans, Sort Results By and choose “Lowest Estimated Annual Mail Order Drug Costs”

6. From there, I’d compare the least expensive plans, comparing the plan ratings and making sure they cover your particular drugs and in the quantity that you take monthly.

7. If money isn’t a limitation, choose a plan with no Drug Restrictions.

If you take mostly generic drugs, I found Humana Walmart-Preferred Rx Plan to be the cheapest.

If you take a few brand name drugs, Blue Shield Medicare Basic Plan might be a good option.

Update: For some reason, when I checked again on Dec 5 Medco was coming up the best plan for generics and brand name drug. Perhaps there was a plan update.

You can find drug prices here.

While inexpensive generics are $4 for 30 tablets at most pharmacies, prices for the more expensive ones are still better at Costco. Here’s an example from my last post.

Famvir 500mg tablets 30 tablets
Costco $66.57
Target $152.47
Sam’s Club $202.88
Wal-mart $246.78

Topical antivirals (penciclovir) or OTC (over-the-counter) Abreva decrease the duration of cold sores by a day.

Oral antivirals like acyclovir, famciclovir (Famvir), and valacyclovir (Valtrex) decrease the duration of cold sores by 2 days. Famciclovir seems like a good deal if you have insurance or are paying cash. It’s 500mg, 3 tablets taken together at one time ($7 at Costco). Remember, these medicines need to be started ASAP within 48 hours of symptoms (lip tingling, itching, burning), hours count so it’s good to get a supply to keep on hand.

Patients with frequent outbreaks may consider taking famcyclovir 500mg twice daily. The same regiment can also be used before periods of sun exposure or dental work.

If it’s your first time with an outbreak, the recommended dosage is 500mg twice daily for a week ($31 at Costco).

You can improve this by half a day by using OTC 1% hydrocortisone cream five times daily.

Cold Sore Relief (a lemon balm) should be applied as well two to four times daily at the first symptom until healed. This may shorten healing time, prevent spread, and reduce symptoms of recurring cold sores.

Try to reduce triggers such has prolonged sun exposure and stress. If you notice that you get outbreaks after eating sweets and nuts, you might try avoiding these foods.

Cold sores sure aren’t fun but hopefully this will help.

Incidentally, Aricept is suppose to be generic by the end of 2010, but it’ll be around June 2011 before the price drops.

I found the new Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Finder a bit confusing and inconsistent, so here’s a few tips to guide you.

1. Enter your ZIP Code and other information, but when you get to Do you have Medicare Supplement Health Insurance (Medigap)? select I don’t know. I’ve found that sometimes, the website will automatically pull this information for you, other times it doesn’t.
2. After entering your drugs, copy down the Drug List ID and Password. The site times out after a few minutes of inactivity and it’s no fun re-typing in that list.
3. If you’re only interested in Medicare Part D Prescription Plan, uncheck Medicare Health Plans without drug coverage and Medicare Health Plans with drug coverage.

In 2011, I’m recommending both of my parents to go with CVS Caremark Plus (PDP) which is administered by SilverScript since it is the lowest overall cost for their medications.

We didn’t choose Group Health since I’m not a fan of HMOs and the Aetna PPO+ deductible is high at $1500 even though Boeing contributes $700 to a Health Savings Account.

We also changed from Aetna Scheduled Dental to WDS Preferred Dental PPO. According to the SPEEA Spotlite, Aetna reimbursements are low and dentist will balance bill you for the difference between the charges and maximum allowable rate, known as “balance billing.” Dentists under WDS Preferred are prohibited from balance billing.