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| MEDICAL & MEDICARE | PRESCRIPTION DRUGS | PENSIONS | SURVIVOR'S HELP | | |
LUCENT RESOURCES |
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Answers To Lucent Benefit Questions
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Lucent has a Participant Advocacy service to assist retirees with medical, dental and prescription drug issues. Before you call Participant Advocacy, you must have made at least one attempt to resolve an issue with your provider or health plan. To request Advocate involvement, call the Lucent Benefits Center at 1-888-232-4111. Lucent has a website to provide Formerly Represented Retirees information about their benefits. Click here to access website. | |
MEDICAL & MEDICARE |
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Fight for Your Health Care
By Lori Andrews; Parade ~ Jan 20, 2008 Chances are, if you're among those Americans lucky enough to have health insurance, you will eventually have a claim rejected. People who fight back when their health-care provider says "no" often do win. The keys are knowing what will get results and being persistent... Trading Up: When to Replace Your Long-Term-Care Policy By Jeff D. Opdyke; The Wall Street Journal ~ Nov 14, 2007 So you've got a long-term-care policy. Congratulations. Now consider dumping it. In replacing an existing policy, you might also pick up some additional benefits not standard with older policies. But this strategy isn't for everyone. For one thing, you're older now, and that will add to the cost, since long-term-care polices have been growing more expensive... | |
| Better check the fine print on that newfangled Medicare plan By Michelle Andrews; US News & World Report ~ Feb 11, 2007 A Medicare "private fee-for-service" plan (PFFS) is a relatively new option that resembles traditional Medicare in that it generally doesn't limit beneficiaries to a defined network of providers. In addition to enticing seniors with low premiums, the plans may offer disease-management services and vision, hearing, dental, and other coverage not available under the regular Medicare plan. But, when it comes to health insurance, talk is cheap... | |
| Fight for Your Rights: Health Insurance Claims
It pays to face up to big insurance companies. By Dan Caplinger, Motley Fool; MSNBC.com ~ Jan 25, 2007 If your health insurance claim is denied, you need to do a number of things to fight the denial and give yourself the best chance of getting your claim paid... | |
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New health plans make shopping for care important
By Michelle Singletary, The Washington Post - Nov. 26, 2006 Michelle Singletary, a writer for The Washington Post, makes recommendations on where to check for information on cost of health care plans. | |
Survivor's Help Document’ Created For LRO MembersRetirement is the beginning of a new life. However, when the new adventure is interrupted by either an incapacitating illness or death, the family and/or surviving heirs, especially spouses, will be faced with many problems that can be avoided or lessened by thoughtful action and advance preparation on the retiree’s part. Click here to view the “Survivor's Help Document” for LRO members’ possible use to help prepare surviving heirs for some of the transitions that follow incapacitated illness and/or death. | |
| Advertisement: For Dummies Guide Helps You Get Savvy About Health Benefits From Aetna;
PlanForYourHealth.com~ Nov 2006 It's that time again — time to make health benefits decisions for the year ahead. When it comes to Open Enrollment — the time typically from October to December when you have the opportunity to re-evaluate your health benefits for the year ahead — where do you even start? A new guide, Navigating Your Health Benefits For Dummies®, can help... | |
Lola Hotchkis Offers Her Views As HR Professional On Health Care Premiums & CoverageEveryone is very concerned about the increase in premiums. I can only analyze the premiums I have in my package which is for the under-65 retirees. Some people have mentioned that premiums increased by 34%. That's the category I'm in. What is interesting is that if a retiree has no dependents, there was NO increase. If someone is insuring themself and a spouse and the spouse isn't being subsidized by LU,the increase was 35%. | |
| Responses to LRO Members Medicare Questions | |
| Making Your Own Decision on Value of Dental Insurance | |
| Investing In Long-Term Care 12/03/2003 | |
Kaiser Family Foundation Website Is Good Resource On Health IssuesThe mission of the Kaiser Family Foundation is to provide timely, reliable, and non-partisan information on national health issues to policymakers, the media, and the general public. To advance that mission, the Foundation established kaisernetwork.org in November 2000. | |
PRESCRIPTION DRUGS |
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Lucent Retirees Have Right To Medco's Grievance ProcessThe LRO has received a number of emails and phone calls from Lucent retirees on Medicare who have encountered various problems in dealing with Medco for their prescription drugs under Medicare Part D. The LRO wants you, as a participant in Alcatel-Lucent's Medco Prescription Drug Plan, to understand that Medco is a Medicare contractor. As such, you have a right to file a grievance on any type of problem encountered with Medco or one of its network pharmacies.A number of Lucent retirees have reported that filing a grievance has produced satisfactory results. The Medicare grievance procedure is posted at http://www.lucentretirees.com/BenefitsTeam/docs/CMS-grievances-part-d.pdf . It describes the reasons for filing a complaint or grievance. Page 23 enumerates the problems with enrollment and disenrollment that many retirees have reported.
The address to write to about your problem is:
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| Does someone you know need help with prescription costs? Social Security and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are working together to get Medicare beneficiaries extra help with their prescription drug costs. You can help someone you care about apply for this extra help. Click here to learn more on the Social Security website about determining eligibility... | |
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Savings Can Result From Mail Order Of Generic Prescription Drugs
By A Member of the LRO Board of Directors ~ Dec 2006 A member of the LRO Board of Directors has been examining the information Lucent has mailed to retirees about changes to the Prescription Drug Plan. Read his observations about savings that can result from the mail order of generic drugs. | |
Important To Keep Lucent's Prescription Drug Coverage Certification DocumentMost, if not all, Lucent retirees who are Medicare eligible should, by now, have received Lucent's annual certification that its prescription drug coverage is at least as good as Medicare's. It is important that Lucent retirees keep this certification among their valuable papers. The significance of this document is that should you ever drop or lose Lucent's prescription drug coverage and need to enroll in Medicare's prescription drug program, you should be able to do so without penalty as long as you do so less than 63 days after Lucent's coverage ends. | |
Lucent's Retirement Plans Director Explains Prescription Drug Plan OptionLRO President Ken Raschke requested an explanation on whether Lucent retirees are eligible to purchase Lucent's prescription drug coverage without being enrolled in one of Lucent's health care insurance plans. Read Ken's questions and the response from Philip Stewart, Lucent's Retirement Plans Director. | |
Is the Medicare Drug Benefit a Benefit for You?If you are eligible for Medicare, read a Washington Post story about whether the Medicare Drug Plan is a benefit right for you. | |
Compare Differences Between Medicare And Lucent Prescription Drug PlansAccording to articles in the news media, many retirees are confused about their options under the Medicare Prescription Drug Act. In an effort to eliminate some of this confusion for Lucent retirees, the LRO has extracted data from the November 2005 AARP Special Report on the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan and Lucent’s 2006 Prescription Drug Plan. The information has been put into an EXCEL spreadsheet. Click here to compare the prescription drug benefits and costs between the Medicare and Lucent plans. Note:This document is for information only. Readers are cautioned to make an independent analysis and decision. | |
Medicare Tool Helps Identify Savings For PrescriptionsThe federal government on Monday unveiled a computer program designed to help Medicare beneficiaries figure out which prescription drug plan best meets their needs. Medicare will include a drug benefit beginning Jan. 1, but some advocacy groups fear the myriad choices and the program's complexities could discourage the nation's elderly and disabled from enrolling. Click here to access the program on Medicare's Website that will allow beneficiaries to plug in such information as the type of drugs they take and how much of a monthly premium or deductible they would be willing to pay. The program will then sort through the plans offered in their communities and list those that meet the beneficiaries' criteria. Estimates of annual cost are also included. | |
| How the Medicare Drug Plan Works By Katherine Hobson U.S. News – Nov 7, 2005 Yes, it's more government gobbledygook. But the new Medicare drug benefit--no matter how daunting it seems--can be a cost saver for many seniors. | |
| How to Pick a Drug Plan By Katherine Hobson U.S. News - Nov 7, 2005 Lipitor. Nexium. Plavix. Fosamax. You know that slew of pills you take every day? They're going to help drive your choice of a Medicare drug plan. | |
PENSIONS |
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Alcatel-Lucent: Pension Surplus Puts It In Very Good Position | |
Update On Lucent Management Retirees Pension Plan The LRO's Pension Team has reviewed the latest information released by Alcatel-Lucent about the financial status of the Lucent Management Retirees Pension Plan. Reporting data as of the end of 2007, Plan Assets were $18.994 billion and Plan Liabilities (accumulated plan benefits) were $16.412 billion. Thus, Plan Assets exceeded Plan Liabilities by $2.582 billion. As retirees may remember, following the stock market downturn in 2002 and Lucent’s use of pension assets to pay early retirement pensions, the management pension plan assets were less than its obligations until recently. These amounts at the end of 2007 suggest that the plan is now in somewhat better condition than several years ago. Click here to read the report by the LRO's Pension Team. | |
| Senator And EBSA Respond On Protections For Pensions And Healthcare Benefits Daniel Yetter, an LRO member in Salem, NH, put forth the effort to send a letter to U.S. Senator John Sununu to request information about what U.S. Government protections might be provided for his pension and healthcare benefits.
Click here to read Senator Sununu's response. | |
A Guide To Understanding the PBGCThe Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, that is the safety net for retirees pension plans, has issued a White Paper that provides background on the PBGC, a description of the operation of the PBGC and the PBGC's financial condition and outlook. Click here to access the White Paper in the Adobe Reader file. | |
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PBGC Letter Explains Maximum Pension BenefitOne of our members wrote a letter to the PBGC in February 2005, asking what the effect of the PBGC taking over the Lucent pension plan would be. The Letter and the PBGC reply are shown here. | |
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