Medicare Copay Help 2026: TotalAssist (PAN) vs HealthWell

If you used to get copay help from the PAN Foundation, you may have noticed the website looks different. That is not a mistake. On March 3, 2026, PAN Foundation and Patient Advocate Foundation announced a merger, and on July 1, 2026, their copay programs became one program called TotalAssist.

This guide compares TotalAssist with the other big copay charity, the HealthWell Foundation. Both help insured patients — including people on Medicare — pay for copays, coinsurance, deductibles and premiums for serious illnesses. We checked every fund list on September 28, 2026, and found something useful: a fund that is closed at one charity is sometimes open at the other.

Note: TotalAssist and the HealthWell Foundation are nonprofit charities, not government programs. Patient Advocate Foundation calls itself “a national 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization,” per totalassist.org, and HealthWell calls itself a “501(c)(3) independent non-profit organization,” per healthwellfoundation.org. Neither charges a fee to apply. Government programs that lower drug costs are covered below.

The Short Answer

	TotalAssist (formerly PAN Foundation)	HealthWell Foundation
Run by	Patient Advocate Foundation	HealthWell Foundation
Funds listed on Sept. 28, 2026	147	93
Open to new patients that day	56	32
Closed that day	91	61
Income limit (funds we read)	500% of poverty, adjusted for local cost of living	500% of poverty (“300 to 500 percent” across funds)
Insurance	Required for most funds; many funds require Medicare, Medicaid or TRICARE	Required (“some form of health insurance”)
Medicare-only funds	Funds marked “Government-insured coverage”	39 funds named “Medicare Access”
How you get the money	Pharmacy card, plus claims in your portal	Pharmacy card on the funds we read
Decision	”Instant” online or by phone	Online or by phone
Phone	866-512-3861 (press 2 for Spanish)	(800) 675-8416
Apply at	totalassist.org	healthwellfoundation.org

Sources: the TotalAssist fund list and the HealthWell fund list, both counted on September 28, 2026. Fund status changes often — sometimes weekly.

What Happened to the PAN Foundation

Here is the timeline, from the charities’ own announcements:

• March 3, 2026 — Patient Advocate Foundation and PAN Foundation announce a merger. “The combined organization, operating as Patient Advocate Foundation, will bring all current programs and services of both organizations into one place.” In 2025 alone, the two groups say they gave $640 million to nearly 200,000 people.
• July 1, 2026 — TotalAssist launches as “a single, unified financial assistance program.” The notice tells people who were “currently receiving assistance from Patient Advocate Foundation or PAN Foundation” to go to totalassist.org.
• August 31, 2026 — TotalAssist reports heavy demand: more than 25,000 patients helped in its first month and over 132,000 enrolled since January 1. It says this “resulted in longer wait and document review times” and apologizes for the delays.

What this means for you: if a pharmacist, doctor or old letter says “PAN Foundation,” the place to go now is totalassist.org or 866-512-3861. panfoundation.org still exists, but it now points patients to TotalAssist for financial help.

Why a Charity Can Help When Drug Coupons Cannot

People on Medicare often hear “you can’t use the manufacturer’s copay card.” That is true, and there is a federal reason.

In 2005, the HHS Office of Inspector General wrote that if a drug company paid Medicare Part D copays for its own drug, the payments “would be squarely prohibited” by the federal anti-kickback law (70 FR 70623). The same bulletin says drug companies can give cash to “independent, bona fide charitable assistance programs.” In 2014, the OIG repeated that “properly structured PAPs can help Federal health care program beneficiaries” (79 FR 31120).

That is why TotalAssist and HealthWell organize help by disease, not by brand, and why so many of their funds are built for Medicare patients. The 2005 bulletin also says charity copay help “will count toward” your Part D out-of-pocket total (called TrOOP), so it moves you toward your plan’s yearly cap.

Where a Closed Fund at One Is Open at the Other

This is the part most people miss. We matched funds for conditions common in people 60 and older on September 28, 2026:

Condition	TotalAssist	HealthWell
Parkinson’s disease	Open — up to $4,400	Closed (“Medicare Access,” up to $4,000)
Multiple myeloma	Closed — up to $10,000	Open (“Medicare Access,” up to $8,000)
Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS)	Closed — up to $8,000	Open (“Medicare Access,” up to $6,500)
Kidney cancer (renal cell carcinoma)	Closed — up to $8,000	Open (“Medicare Access,” up to $8,000)
Cardiomyopathy	Closed — up to $2,000	Open (“Medicare Access,” up to $7,500)
Pancreatic cancer	Open — up to $6,000	Closed (“Medicare Access”)
Multiple sclerosis	Open — up to $8,000	Closed (“Medicare Access”)
High cholesterol (hypercholesterolemia)	Open — up to $3,800	Closed (“Medicare Access”)
Ovarian cancer	Open — up to $4,000	Open (“Medicare Access”)
Pulmonary hypertension	Open — up to $9,500	Open (“Medicare Access”)
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)	Open — up to $9,500	Open
Macular degeneration	Closed — up to $4,600	Closed (“AMD and Retinal Vascular Diseases”)
COPD	Closed	Closed (“Medicare Access”)
Prostate cancer	Closed	Closed (“Medicare Access”)

Dollar amounts are each fund’s listed maximum. We list a HealthWell maximum only where we opened that fund’s page. Statuses change without warning — use this as a map of where to look, not a promise.

Two details on the TotalAssist side:

• “Guaranteed” vs. “maximum.” Fund pages show two numbers. The Parkinson’s fund reads “$2,200 guaranteed award | $4,400 maximum award,” per totalassist.org. Plan around the lower number.
• “Health equity” funds. Some conditions have a second TotalAssist fund with “health equity” in its name. These are limited to people with a home address in ZIP codes the fund covers. You “cannot receive more than one grant for the same condition.”

Who Qualifies

The rules are similar at both charities. For the funds we read, you generally need all of these:

• A diagnosis with an open fund. Search by disease or by drug name.
• Insurance that covers the drug. HealthWell requires “some form of health insurance — such as private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid or Tricare.” Many TotalAssist funds require “government-insured coverage.”
• A drug on the fund’s approved list, if you want help with medication costs.
• Income at or under the fund’s limit — 500% of the poverty level on the funds we opened (table below).
• Treatment in the U.S. or a U.S. territory. TotalAssist also says you must “Be a legal resident.”
• A Social Security Number (TotalAssist also accepts an Alien Number). HealthWell says the number is used “to eliminate duplicate applications.”

For HealthWell’s Medicare Access funds, each page adds: “In order to qualify for premium assistance through this fund, you must have Medicare Part B.”

2026 income limit: 500% of the poverty level

Household size	48 states and D.C.	Alaska	Hawaii
1	$79,800	$99,750	$91,800
2	$108,200	$135,250	$124,450
3	$136,600	$170,750	$157,100
4	$165,000	$206,250	$189,750

Source: TotalAssist’s 2026 poverty guideline table, which cites HHS. These match 5 times the 2026 HHS poverty guidelines ($15,960 for one person, $21,640 for two). TotalAssist adjusts for your area’s cost of living, so the limit where you live may be higher.

What the Money Pays For

TotalAssist says its grants can pay for, per totalassist.org:

• Medication copays, coinsurance and deductibles (for drugs on the fund’s list)
• Health insurance premiums
• Office visit charges on the day of treatment
• Administration charges related to treatment

It cannot pay for dental, vision or life insurance premiums; lab work, radiation, scans or surgery; drugs your insurance does not cover; or “Prescriptions when a discount prescription card is used.”

HealthWell pays copays, coinsurance, premiums and deductibles depending on the fund. The Medicare Access funds we opened were listed as “Prescription Drug Copay,” paid by pharmacy card. See our HealthWell guide for its full rules.

Do not mix a charity grant with a discount card. Besides TotalAssist’s rule, Medicare says a discount card used instead of your plan “doesn’t count toward your Medicare deductible or out-of-pocket maximum,” per medicare.gov. Our guide to free vs. paid prescription discount cards explains when those cards do make sense.

How to Apply to Both

Step 1 — Find your fund at both charities. Search TotalAssist funds and HealthWell funds by your disease or drug. Write down which are open.

Step 2 — Gather your information. TotalAssist lists: contact details, Social Security or Alien Number, yearly income, insurance carrier and policy ID, copay amounts, any Medicare supplement, your doctor’s name, your diagnosis (and date, if within 6 months), and your prescribed drugs.

Step 3 — Apply.

• TotalAssist: online at portal.totalassist.org (about 15 minutes) or by phone at 866-512-3861, Monday–Friday, 8:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m. Eastern. For Spanish, press 2. It says “You’ll find out instantly if you’re approved.” Interpreters are available by phone.
• HealthWell: online through its patient portal, or by phone at (800) 675-8416, Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Eastern.

Step 4 — Watch for an income letter. TotalAssist checks income through a third-party service. If it asks for proof, you have 30 days, and “Patients cannot submit claims for payment during this income verification period,” per its income verification page. A signed federal tax return (pages 1 and 2) is preferred. If you are retired, a pension or benefits statement and a bank statement showing the deposit also work.

Step 5 — If your fund is closed, sign up for alerts. TotalAssist has a notify page. HealthWell has alerts on each fund page. A HealthWell grant you already have “will remain active for the entire 12 month grant cycle” even if the fund later closes.

Can you hold grants from both charities? Neither charity’s pages we read say. TotalAssist only says you cannot get two TotalAssist grants for the same condition. Ask each charity before you apply, and tell them about any other help you receive.

Other Help Worth Checking

• Extra Help (government): Medicare’s program for people with limited income and savings. For 2027, Medicare says it means a $0 premium and deductible and no more than $5.80 per generic and $14.40 per brand-name drug. See our Extra Help guide.
• Help with Medicare premiums: Medicare Savings Programs vs. Extra Help.
• Free one-on-one Medicare counseling: your state’s SHIP program can compare plans and help you apply.
• Drug company programs and more foundations: NeedyMeds keeps a free directory.

How We Checked This

Every figure above came from a primary source we opened and read on September 28, 2026.

• The merger and TotalAssist launch come from PAN Foundation’s own March 3, 2026 and July 1, 2026 notices, read directly on panfoundation.org.
• TotalAssist’s fund list, fund pages, eligibility rules, income table and application steps come from totalassist.org. That site refused ordinary requests from our location (HTTP 403), so we read each page in full through a US-based browser service. We counted all 147 fund rows by hand and cross-checked the total (56 open + 91 closed).
• HealthWell’s fund list and fund pages were read directly on healthwellfoundation.org. We counted the status labels in the page itself: 32 open, 61 closed, 0 re-enrollment.
• The federal rules on charity copay help come from the full text of the OIG’s 2005 and 2014 bulletins, from the Federal Register.
• The discount card warning and 2027 Extra Help figures come from medicare.gov.

Where the facts differ from what people repeat:

• “Apply to the PAN Foundation.” As a separate program, it no longer takes applications. Since July 1, 2026, PAN’s funds are part of TotalAssist.
• “People on Medicare can’t get copay help.” Manufacturer coupons are the problem, not charities. The OIG has allowed independent charity help since 2005.
• “If my fund is closed, there’s no help.” On the day we checked, 8 of the 14 conditions in our table were closed at one charity and open at the other.

What we could not verify: HealthWell’s maximum awards for the funds where we did not open the page (left blank in the table), whether you may hold grants from both charities at once, how long TotalAssist’s current waits are, and the exact cost-of-living adjustment each charity applies to its income limit. We also did not check every fund on either list individually.

Both charities operate nationwide. Figures are for 2026 (the 2027 Extra Help figures are marked). All sources cited here were verified on September 28, 2026.

This is general information, not legal or financial advice.