A Medigap policy with a high deductible does not start paying on the first dollar of a bill. Under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ March 2026 Medigap guide, a policyholder with a high-deductible Plan F or Plan G must cover the first $2,950 of 2026 costs personally before the insurer pays anything. The figure is easy to miss when comparing plans, because it is a deductible rather than a premium.
What CMS Product No. 02110 says about the $2,950
The wording comes from the Medigap guide, CMS Product No. 02110, dated March 2026. For a high-deductible plan, it states: “you must pay the first $2,950 (in 2026) of deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance.” Only after that amount is met does the Medigap policy begin to pay its share.
The sentence covers three kinds of cost at once: deductibles, copayments and coinsurance. In other words, the $2,950 is not limited to a single Medicare deductible. Costs that the policy would otherwise have paid count toward the amount, and the policyholder carries them until the total is reached.
The figure is tied to a year. The guide labels it as the 2026 amount, so it is a 2026 number and not a permanent one. Anyone reading a plan brochure or a quote should check which year the deductible refers to before comparing it with another policy.
High-deductible Plan F and Plan G: the only two options
The high-deductible feature is offered on Plans F and G only, according to the guide. Other lettered Medigap plans do not carry it, so the $2,950 rule does not apply to them.
Plan F comes with a separate restriction. The guide says that Plans C and F are no longer available to people new to Medicare on or after January 1, 2020. A person who became eligible for Medicare in 2020 or later therefore cannot buy a high-deductible Plan F, and for that group the high-deductible choice in practice means Plan G. People who were already on Medicare before that date may still be able to buy Plans C and F.
That split matters because the plan letter on a quote does not reveal the eligibility rule behind it. A buyer who sees a high-deductible Plan F advertised needs to know whether the plan can legally be sold to someone with that Medicare start date.
A second, separate $250 deductible for foreign travel
The guide adds a smaller cost that sits alongside the main one. Medigap policies that cover foreign travel emergency care carry their own deductible of $250 per year, described in the guide as “a separate deductible ($250 per year) for foreign travel emergency care.”
The two amounts are not the same bucket. Spending toward the $2,950 high-deductible amount is described by CMS as covering deductibles, copayments and coinsurance, while the foreign travel deductible is called separate. A policyholder who travels abroad could face both thresholds in the same year.
Medigap enrollment timing is separate from the October window
Medigap buyers have a protected period that is easy to confuse with the fall enrollment season. The guide describes a one-time Medigap Open Enrollment Period lasting six months, and says it starts the first month a person has Medicare Part B and is 65 or older. During that period, federal law allows a person to buy any Medigap policy sold in the state.
That clock is personal and starts on a different date for each person. It is not the same as the annual enrollment period for Medicare Advantage and Part D plans, which CMS lists as October 15, 2026 through December 7, 2026 in its September 28, 2026 announcement on the 2027 plan landscape. A person whose six-month Medigap window has already closed should not assume that the fall dates reopen it. The guide lists seven situations in which a person may have guaranteed-issue rights, and those are the exceptions to check.
Why a deductible is hard to see in a plan quote
A monthly premium is a number that appears on every quote. A deductible of $2,950 is a risk, and it stays out of view until a large bill arrives. The guide places the cost in plain terms: the policyholder pays first, and the insurer pays afterward. A year without much care means the deductible may never be reached; a year with a hospital stay or several specialist visits could bring it into play quickly.
The guide does not set out a break-even calculation, and it does not give premium amounts for high-deductible plans. Any comparison between a high-deductible plan and a standard one therefore has to be built from actual quotes in the buyer’s own state, set against the $2,950 in 2026 and the $250 foreign travel deductible where that coverage matters.
The authoritative text is the CMS guide itself, Product No. 02110, whose March 2026 edition carries the $2,950 figure and the Plan F and Plan G scope described above.
Medicare out-of-pocket costs worth tracking
The first-dollar deductible on a high-deductible Medigap plan is the kind of gap that does not show up in a premium quote, and a Medicare household that ignores it can be caught by a large bill with no plan in place for it.
The Medicare Cost & Coverage Protection Kit includes a medication and cost tracker and 51 state Medicare cost-help packs, which a reader can use to log running medical and drug costs and look up state-level help with premiums and drug costs.
Click here to get The Medicare Cost & Coverage Protection Kit and start tracking costs →
This article was drafted with AI assistance from the cited official sources and checked against them before publication.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
