By B.J. Roche

It's New Year's Eve, and if you waited until the last minute to check up on mom or dad's Medicare Part D drug plan coverage and, if needed, switch to a less costly plan, here's some advice: give up.

It's too late. You probably should have started back in November. But in November,  you were dealing with the holidays and your kid's early application to college, right? As the immortal Roseanne Rosannadanna used to say, "It's always somethin."

The deadline to switch, of course, is December 31. But there's always next year, and the plan comparison exercise, over at Medicare.gov, is worth doing,  just to get yourself updated on all the drugs your mom is consuming. (Cue ironic music here.)

The simple act of getting all the drugs and their dosages onto a list is an important and helpful action, particularly if the eldercare is shared among siblings. My sisters put together an Excel spreadsheet with the drugs and dosages, which can be sent along wherever the Queen Mum is visiting.

If mom doesn't know what coverage she has currently, you can call the Medicare Help Line at (800) 633-4227. Have her Medicare Claim Number and date of birth ready. You can key in the requested information and an automated line tells you what company is currently covering her.

Then you can go to the Medicare site and compare plans. Here's a good step by step guide from the AARP website.

At the Medicare site, click into the Compare Drug Plans.

You'll need that list of all your parent's meds and the dosages. You enter them all, and you can keep this list online and update as you need to.

Then go pour yourself a cold one. You're going to need it to get through what seems like an extremely complicated job of comparing deductibles, premiums and coverage among the 20 or so plans that come up on the screen.

You will wonder, as I did, how the average consumer, without a master's degree in math or finance, negotiates this maze without getting screwed by either the insurance companies or the drug companies.

And maybe that is just the point.