When Congress passed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act in 2003 implementing prescription drug coverage under Medicare (commonly known as Part D), it required all employers that offer prescription drug benefits to provide an annual notice to all Medicare-eligible plan participants and qualified beneficiaries before October 15th of each year, the start of the Medicare open enrollment period. This could include not only retirees and their dependents, but active Medicare-eligible employees and their dependents, and COBRA participants as well. For most employers, rather than determine which actives, retirees, dependents, and COBRA participants are Medicare-eligible, it’s easier to blanket the entire population with this annual notice. But there are significant changes coming for this requirement in 2027.