What is a Medicare Part D stand-alone prescription drug plan?
Medicare Part D plans are purchased by Medicare beneficiaries to provide prescription drug coverage, as Original Medicare does not include outpatient drug coverage.
In some cases, Part D plans are purchased to supplement a Medicare Advantage Medicare Savings Account (MSA) plan or Private Fee-for-Service (PFFS) plan, but most other Medicare Advantage plans include integrated Part D coverage (and stand-alone Part D coverage cannot be purchased if you have another type of Medicare Advantage plan).1
Medicare Part D plans are called “stand-alone” because they’re purchased on their own, separate from the rest of the person’s health coverage; it’s common for an Original Medicare beneficiary to have a Part D prescription drug plan from one insurer and a Medigap plan from a different insurer.
Are there other types of stand-alone prescription drug plans?
You might also hear someone refer to stand-alone prescription drug coverage for people who aren’t enrolled in Medicare, although that’s much less common. It’s possible, however, to obtain stand-alone drug plans in the non-Medicare market, although they’re usually prescription discount plans rather than insurance (here’s an explanation of how that works).
Under the Affordable Care Act, all individual and small group health plans effective in 2014 or later include prescription drug coverage as an essential health benefit, so there’s no need for a stand-alone drug plan if you have an ACA-compliant individual or small group plan (grandfathered and grandmothered plans can still exist without drug coverage). And although large group plans are not required to cover prescription drugs, nearly all of them do. States are not required to include prescription drug coverage in their Medicaid plans, but all of them currently do.
So Original Medicare is the only major type of health coverage that doesn’t include prescription drug coverage, requiring enrollees to purchase supplemental stand-alone drug coverage. Medicare Part D is true insurance, but in most other cases, if people are buying stand-alone drug coverage, they may be getting a prescription discount program rather than an actual insurance plan.
Footnotes
- ”Your Guide to Medicare Drug Coverage” Medicare.gov. Accessed Mar. 26, 2026 ⤶