HealthIntel Weekly: Humana and Centene Lead PDP Gains as Medicare Part D Enrollment Climbs in 2026

Mar 13, 2026

Welcome to HealthIntel Weekly. Every week, we pull together the latest health care reports, research, and upcoming webinars so you don’t have to dig for them.

What’s New:

More than 56 million people were enrolled in Medicare Part D as of February 2026, with 56% in Medicare Advantage plans with drug coverage and 44% in stand-alone prescription drug plans, according to a KFF analysis. Overall PDP enrollment increased by 1.7 million from 2025 to 2026, largely driven by growth in employer-sponsored group PDPs. During the same period, enrollment in employer group MA-PD plans fell by about 1.2 million, while group PDP enrollment rose by roughly 1.2 million. This marked the first year-over-year decline in employer group MA-PD enrollment since 2010 and the largest increase in employer group PDP enrollment since 2013. Among non-group Part D plans, MA-PD enrollment grew by about 1 million, while non-group PDP enrollment increased by roughly 500,000. Humana Inc. and Centene Corp. added the most PDP enrollees during this period. Enrollment in Humana’s PDPs increased by 61%, and Centene’s PDP enrollment increased by 11%.

U.S. health care prices vary widely across markets and providers, and those differences often do not correspond with better quality or safety outcomes, according to the Purchaser Business Group on Health’s Health Care Data Demonstration Project. The study analyzed data from five large self-insured employers across 10 regional markets and found significant variation in negotiated prices across regions, insurers, and even within the same facility. Researchers also found that higher-priced providers frequently performed worse on standardized quality measures, while lower-priced providers often demonstrated better safety and clinical outcomes. In addition, insurer or service provider market share did not consistently translate into more competitive pricing; some smaller players secured superior negotiated rates than dominant market insurers. The report also highlighted major limitations in federal price transparency efforts, noting that required pricing files vary widely in usability. In particular, hospital price transparency data proved more difficult to analyze and generally inferior to payer submissions.

More than half of U.S. primary care physicians received some revenue from value-based payment (VBP) models, though participation remains significantly lower in rural and small practices, according to an analysis by The Commonwealth Fund. The analysis is based on data from the 2025 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey of Primary Care Physicians and found that 56% of PCPs said their practice received revenue from VBP. Among them, more than half reported that up to 49% of their practice revenue comes from such models. Meanwhile, less than half of rural practices received any revenues from VBP, significantly less than nonrural practices and 11 percentage points lower than the national average. Physicians working in small practices were also less likely to report receiving VBP revenue than those in larger practices. In contrast, physicians at community health centers reported higher participation rates in VBP models than physicians working outside these centers.