Medical News: Still More Questions than Answers on Impact of Medicare Drug Benefit - in Public Health & Policy, Medicare from MedPage Today

By John Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today Preliminary indications are that Medicare Part D has improved seniors' access to prescription drugs at lower-than-expected cost to taxpayers, but problems and questions still remain, according to a review from the Kaiser Family Foundation. One of the biggest problems is the "doughnut hole," the coverage gap in Part D that forces Medicare beneficiaries to pay all drug costs between $2,700 and $6,154, according to Patricia Neuman, ScD, and Juliette Cubanski, PhD, of Kaiser. Published in the July 23 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, their report found that, since Part D went into effect, nonadherence to prescribed medications because of cost has decreased -- except among patients falling into the doughnut hole. Read More