What’s the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan?

The Medicare Prescription Payment Plan is a new payment option in the prescription drug law that works with your current drug coverage to help you manage your out-of-pocket costs for drugs covered by your plan by spreading them across the calendar year (January–December).

Starting in 2025, anyone with a Medicare drug plan or Medicare health plan with drug coverage (like a Medicare Advantage Plan with drug coverage) can use this payment option.

All plans offer this payment option, and participation is voluntary.

This payment option might help you manage your monthly expenses, but it doesn’t save you money or lower your drug costs.

Questions: Before signing up, please contact the Hartsville pharmacy staff at 843-339-5530 to speak with someone directly.

April is STD Awareness Month

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

South Carolina is the seventh most “sexually diseased state” in the nation, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

Since 2013, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis have all sharply increased – with more than two million of these infections reported in the U.S. in 2017 alone, according to the CDC.

For South Carolina, the chlamydia rate per 100,000 people is 575.5 and the gonorrhea rate per 100,000 people is 187.8.

When it comes to HIV, the numbers also continue to rise. In 2017, there were 4,478 residents of the Pee Dee Public Health Region living with a diagnosis of HIV (including AIDS). This represents 23 percent of the S.C. total. Of these, 2,965 were men and 1,513 were women.

April is STD Awareness Month. The purpose of the month is to spread the word about what sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are and how they impact people’s lives, as well as to reach communities about why it’s so important to prevent, test for, and treat these infections.

Here are some tips for STD prevention:

Use latex condoms every time you have sexual intercourse.
Avoid sharing towels or underclothing
Wash before and after intercourse
Get a vaccination for Hepatitis B. This is a series of three shots.
Get tested for HIV.
If you have a problem with drug or alcohol abuse, seek help. People who are drunk or on drugs often fail to practice safe sex.
Consider that not having sex- or having just one partner who only has you as their partner- is the only sure way to prevent STDs.

CareSouth Carolina offers HIV & STD testing, as well as pre-and-post-test counseling, care management, medications, behavioral health and many other services.

CareSouth Carolina is a private, non-profit community health center delivering patient-centered health and life services in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. CareSouth Carolina operates centers in Bennettsville, Bishopville, Cheraw, Chesterfield, Dillon, Hartsville, Lake View, Latta, McColl and Society Hill.

What’s the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan?

April is STD Awareness Month

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