The Medicare Part D Plan Characteristics fileset is a suite of six files which provide information about the Medicare part D plan’s coverage and benefits.
The six files are:
- Plan Base
- Premium
- Tier
- Service Area
- Plan Crosswalk
- Special Needs Plan (SNP) Contract
Starting with the 2026 service year, CMS is releasing the Part D Plan Characteristics fileset quarterly. The new quarterly Part D data products will be produced after a three-month maturity run-out for a calendar quarter, following the same cadence as the quarterly Master Beneficiary Summary File and Original Medicare claims datasets. For example:
- Q1 2026 (January – March 2026) PDE was produced in July 2026
- Q2 2026 (April – June 2026) PDE was produced in October 2026
What does this file include? (variable highlights)
- Plan Type
- Plan Indicator for Part C, Part D, or both
- Cost Sharing Specifics
- Initial coverage phase limits
- Plan premium amount
- Plan service area description
- Crosswalk of current plan ID to previous years
- Demonstration type
- Special needs plan type
- Linkage variables to the PDE and to each of the Plan Characteristic files:
- Plan Contract ID
- Plan Benefit Package ID (use in combination to link to specific plan)
Why do researchers request this file?
- Studies that compare medication usage and clinical outcomes by plan benefits
Special considerations
- Part D Characteristics files for service years prior to 2026 are available as annual files only.
- When the Plan characteristics data is requested and approved, all files are delivered.
