The donut hole finally closed for good in 2020, having been phased out in 2019 for brand-name drugs and then in 2020 for generic drugs. The average out-of-pocket costs continued to rise, reaching $1,858 in 2010 until the donut hole started to close the following year. Those who didn't get coverage from the Extra Help financial assistance program paid an average of $1,701 in out-of-pocket drug costs for the year.

You then had to pay 100 percent of the cost of covered drugs until you spent a total of $3,850 out of your pocket for the year.Ĭatastrophic coverage phase still exists. After spending $3,850 of your own money in 2007, you reached the catastrophic coverage level and then paid a small portion of your prescription costs.Ī Kaiser Family Foundation study found that 32 percent of Part D enrollees reached the donut hole in 2007. In 2007, the first full year of the Part D program, you hit the donut hole after you and your insurance company paid $2,400 in drug costs. But some people had significant out-of-pocket costs even after they bought Part D coverage. The donut hole, some spell it “doughnut,” was a part of Medicare’s prescription drug benefit from its beginning in 2006, three years after Congress passed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act.īefore Part D was introduced, Medicare beneficiaries typically had to pay all costs for their prescriptions not included in Medicare Part B unless they had coverage from another source, such as retiree insurance or a Medigap plan. No donut hole, but now a coverage gap. Part D plans, federally regulated but sold by private insurers, may require you to pay a larger share of the cost for covered drugs after your drug costs reach a certain limit. En español | No, the infamous donut hole - when Medicare beneficiaries with Part D prescription drug coverage reached a certain level and then had to dig out by paying 100 percent of their drug costs out of pocket until they reached a certain threshold - has closed.

Donut hole game download free