Out-of-pocket drug costs among Medicare beneficiaries

At the Patient Access Network (PAN) Foundation, we advocate for strategies that will increase access to necessary medications among Medicare beneficiaries by reducing, redistributing and capping out-of-pocket (OOP) prescription drug costs.

PAN’s fourth Issue Brief, OOP Drug Costs Among Medicare Beneficiaries, examines the intersection of chronic illness and OOP drug costs among Medicare beneficiaries, and the trends that are driving increases in these costs over time. We urge consideration of the following changes to the benefit structure of Medicare Part D prescription drug plans:

• Putting a “hard cap” on OOP costs once beneficiaries reach Part D’s catastrophic threshold.
• Distributing OOP costs more evenly throughout the calendar year.
• Ensuring that health conditions have at least one effective drug that is not on a specialty tier.

Explore the Issue Brief here.