Carecycle Launches Free Medicare Plan Comparison Tool
Carecycle's new tool helps Medicare beneficiaries compare plans, and it's available for free. This launch coincides with Medicare's Open Enrollment period.
Original reporting · fiercehealthcare.com
Original: “Voice AI startup careCycle rolls out free plan comparison tool for Medicare beneficiaries”
Read “Voice AI startup careCycle rolls out free plan comparison tool for Medicare beneficiaries” at Fierce Healthcare →
How this was written. Diagnosis Forward wrote this article with a language model from Fierce Healthcare’s reporting (model: @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast); it describes that reporting rather than adding to it. The original, linked above, is the full story.
Key points from Fierce Healthcare’s report
- Carecycle has launched a free Medicare plan comparison tool called Match Your Medicare.
- The tool provides users with yearly cost estimates and shows which plans have their doctors in-network.
- Carecycle's CEO notes that many users encounter unexpected costs or find that their medications are not covered after enrollment.
- The company argues that conflicting interests, such as marketing tactics and sales agent incentives, contribute to these issues.
- Forced disenrollment from Medicare Advantage plans has become more common in recent years.
Medicare's Open Enrollment period has begun, and to help beneficiaries make informed decisions, careCycle has introduced a free plan comparison tool. This tool, called Match Your Medicare, is available indefinitely and does not require users to create an account or pay any fees. It also does not sell or share personal information, ensuring users' data remains private.
The tool provides users with yearly cost estimates, including premiums, copays, and drug costs, based on the information they provide. Users can compare up to three plans side by side, making it easier to choose the best option for their needs. Additionally, the tool shows which plans have users' doctors in-network, which is a crucial factor in choosing a plan.
To use the tool, users only need to enter their ZIP code, date of birth, and gender. They can also optionally provide their doctors' prescriptions and health conditions to get more accurate results. A video guide is available to walk users through each step, and they can even fill out forms using voice commands.
Carecycle, a company backed by Y Combinator, specializes in providing tools for customer service teams and AI-powered voice agents. These agents handle post-enrollment tasks, such as welcome calls and reminders about expiring benefits. They have already logged over 30,000 hours of calls and helped support over 1 million people after enrollment.
According to careCycle's co-founder and CEO, Alex Doonanco, the company often receives feedback from users who encounter unexpected costs or find that their medications are not covered after enrollment. Doonanco notes that these issues can be resolved quickly before signing up for a plan, but many users do not ask about them during the enrollment process.
The company argues that these issues arise from conflicting interests, such as marketing tactics that prioritize perks over confirming whether a patient's doctor or prescriptions are in-network. Sales agents may also be incentivized to enroll as many people as possible, rather than ensuring a quality match. This can lead to users switching plans multiple times, which is not a sign of careful shopping, but rather a result of being misled.
Forced disenrollment from Medicare Advantage plans has become more common in recent years, with an average of 1% of enrollees being disenrolled annually from 2018 to 2024. However, this number jumped to 7% in 2025 and 10% in 2026, according to one analysis. As a result, nearly 3 million Medicare Advantage beneficiaries will need to find new plans or switch to traditional Medicare this year. This article is based on reporting by Fierce Healthcare.
Questions and answers
What is Match Your Medicare?
Match Your Medicare is a free plan comparison tool launched by careCycle to help Medicare beneficiaries choose the best plan for their needs.
How does the tool work?
The tool provides users with yearly cost estimates and shows which plans have their doctors in-network, based on the information they provide.
Why do users often encounter unexpected costs or find that their medications are not covered after enrollment?
According to careCycle's CEO, these issues arise from conflicting interests, such as marketing tactics and sales agent incentives, which prioritize perks over confirming whether a patient's doctor or prescriptions are in-network.
