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Part D-Day

The new Medicare prescription drug benefit begins to kick in on Sunday. Given the confusion swirling around "Part D," Baltimore is treating the ...

The new Medicare prescription drug benefit begins to kick in on Sunday. Given the confusion swirling around "Part D," Baltimore is treating the changeover as a potential public health emergency, NPR reports today.

Baltimore is particularly concerned about low-income seniors who have been getting their meds through Medicaid. These folks are supposed to be automatically enrolled in the new plan. There's fear, however, that computer glitches and other hiccups may conspire to send seniors home from the pharmacy empty-handed.

Joshua Sharfstein, Baltimore's health commissioner, tells NPR:

"If the pharmacist feels like there's a low income senior or disabled person who they would be sending out without the medicines they need, they'll be able to reach someone at the health department 24 hours a day and we've set aside $50,000 to pay for medicines in a pinch if we can't figure out how to get the insurance system to work."

Baltimore also plans on doing some data mining to find out if seniors are falling through the cracks. Officials will be looking to see if there's a spike in emergency room admissions due to conditions--such as high blood sugar in diabetics--caused by a failure to take medications.

MORE FROM 13TH FLOOR: States Steering Seniors' Drug Choices

Christopher Swope was GOVERNING's executive editor.
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