Medicare Annual Enrollment 2026: Your October 15–December 7 Game Plan for 2027 Coverage

Every October, our office in Broward County fills up with people holding the same envelope. It arrived in September, it has their insurance company’s logo on it, it is thirty pages long, and most of them have not opened it. A few have thrown it away. One woman last year brought hers in still sealed and said, honestly, “I assumed if something important changed, someone would call me.”

Nobody calls. That envelope is the call. It is your plan telling you, in writing and in advance, exactly what it intends to charge you and cover next year — and it arrives when there is still time to do something about it. After December 7, for most people, there isn’t.

This guide walks through the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period that runs October 15 through December 7, 2026, for coverage that starts January 1, 2027. What you can actually change. What is already confirmed about 2027 and what is still unannounced. How to compare plans in a way that reflects what you’ll really spend, not what the brochure advertises. And what happens if you do nothing — which is itself a decision, and this year a riskier one than usual.

1. What AEP is — and the four things you can change

The Annual Enrollment Period — you’ll hear it called AEP, Medicare Open Enrollment, or just “the fall window” — runs from October 15 to December 7 every year. Anything you change during it takes effect on January 1.⁴

It is open to everyone already on Medicare. You do not need a reason, a qualifying event, or permission. Inside the window you can:

• Switch from Original Medicare to a Medicare Advantage plan (Part C).
• Switch from Medicare Advantage back to Original Medicare — and add a stand-alone Part D drug plan.
• Change from one Medicare Advantage plan to another.
• Join, drop, or switch a Part D prescription drug plan.

One important thing AEP does not guarantee: the right to buy a Medigap (Medicare Supplement) policy without medical underwriting. Medigap has its own rules. Your protected window to buy any Medigap policy sold in Florida regardless of health is the six months beginning when you are 65 and enrolled in Part B. Outside that window, in most cases a Medigap insurer can ask health questions and decline you.¹⁰ This catches people who assume they can try Medicare Advantage for a few years and switch back to Original Medicare with a supplement whenever they like. Sometimes you can. Sometimes your health has changed and you can’t.

2. The letter that decides your year

If your Medicare Advantage or Part D plan is continuing into next year, it is required to send you an Annual Notice of Change — the ANOC — and it must be in your mailbox by September 30.⁴ It arrives alongside the Evidence of Coverage, which is the long legal document. The ANOC is the short one that matters.

The ANOC is a side-by-side comparison: this is what your plan charged and covered this year, this is what it will charge and cover next year. Everything you actually care about is in it — premium, deductible, copays, the drug list, the pharmacy network, the doctor network, and the extra benefits like dental, vision, hearing, and over-the-counter allowances.

Read it with four questions in mind:

1. Did my premium change? The most visible number, and often the least important one.
2. Are all of my drugs still on the formulary, at the same tier? A drug moving from tier 2 to tier 4 can cost you more than a $20 premium increase ever will. A drug dropping off entirely is a reason to change plans.
3. Are my doctors and my hospital still in network? Networks change every January. This is the number one complaint we hear in February from people who didn’t check in October.
4. Did the extra benefits shrink? Dental allowances, OTC cards, and transportation benefits have been quietly trimmed across the market. If a benefit is the reason you chose the plan, verify it survived.

A separate and more serious letter is the non-renewal notice. If your Advantage plan is leaving your county altogether, the plan must tell you before AEP opens. That notice also gives you a Special Enrollment Period, so you get extra time beyond December 7 — but if you ignore it entirely, you fall back to Original Medicare on January 1 with no drug coverage and no supplement, which is the worst of all available outcomes. Insurers have been withdrawing from unprofitable Advantage markets and trimming plan offerings in recent years, so a non-renewal is no longer a rare event.¹³

3. What’s confirmed for 2027 — and what isn’t

A lot of what you read in August about “next year’s Medicare costs” is projection dressed up as fact. Here is the honest split.⁷

Already confirmed

• The Part D out-of-pocket cap: $2,400 for 2027, up from $2,100 in 2026.¹
• The standard Part D deductible: $700, up from $615.¹
• The Part D base beneficiary premium: $41.33, published by CMS in its July 28, 2026 Part D bid information release. This is the statutory benchmark used in premium and penalty calculations, not what any particular plan charges.³
• Star Ratings methodology changes, finalized in the CY2027 rule.²
• The end of the Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration after CY2026.³

Not yet announced as of mid-August

• The 2027 Part B premium and deductible. CMS normally announces these in November. The 2026 Medicare Trustees Report projects roughly $209.50 a month, against the confirmed 2026 figure of $202.90 — but a projection is not a rate, and several independent forecasters expect a higher number.⁸
• Your specific plan’s 2027 premiums and formulary. Plan-level detail lands in late September, which is exactly when your ANOC arrives and when Medicare’s Plan Compare tool loads next year’s data.⁵

4. Part D in 2027: a higher cap and a bigger deductible

The 2025 redesign permanently rebuilt Part D: the coverage gap — the “donut hole” — is gone, and there is a hard annual ceiling on what you can be asked to pay out of pocket for covered drugs. Once you hit it, you pay nothing for covered prescriptions for the rest of the calendar year.

For 2027 that ceiling is $2,400, and the standard deductible is $700.¹ Both moved up more sharply than last year’s adjustment. The practical shape of the year changes accordingly: you absorb more cost early, before the deductible is satisfied, and the protective ceiling sits a little further away.

Part D standard benefit parameters, 2026 vs. 2027¹

Parameter	2026	2027	Change
Annual out-of-pocket cap	$2,100	$2,400	+$300
Standard deductible	$615	$700	+$85
Coverage gap (“donut hole”)	Eliminated	Eliminated	—
Insulin, covered products	$35/month cap	$35/month cap	—
ACIP-recommended vaccines	$0	$0	—

Two protections carry through unchanged, and they are worth knowing precisely because plans sometimes describe them poorly: covered insulin products stay capped at $35 for a month’s supply, and vaccines recommended by ACIP — shingles, RSV, pneumococcal, and others — stay at $0. Neither is subject to the deductible.¹ If a pharmacy tries to charge you a deductible on a shingles shot, that is an error worth challenging.

There is also the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan, sometimes called M3P. It doesn’t reduce what you owe; it spreads it across the calendar year in capped monthly installments instead of hitting you all at once at the pharmacy counter. Every Part D plan is required to offer it.⁶ It is most useful if your drug costs are front-loaded — an expensive specialty medication in January can consume most of the cap in a single month. If you are already enrolled, confirm with your plan how your participation carries into 2027 rather than assuming it continues untouched.

The change most people will miss

Since 2025, CMS has run a voluntary Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration for stand-alone drug plans — effectively a subsidy that damped year-over-year premium swings while the redesigned benefit bedded in. CMS has decided that plan sponsors now have enough experience under the new structure and is discontinuing the demonstration at the end of CY2026, returning stand-alone Part D to ordinary market rules for 2027.³

Translated: the cushion that has been keeping stand-alone drug-plan premiums flatter than they otherwise would have been is being removed. This does not mean every drug plan premium will rise, and it does not affect drug coverage bundled inside a Medicare Advantage plan the same way. But if you have a stand-alone Part D plan, this is the year to actually open the ANOC rather than assume your premium held steady. Plan-level pricing publishes in late September — that is when the real answer arrives.

5. Advantage or Original Medicare: revisiting the fork

AEP is the one moment each year when the big structural choice is genuinely reopened. Most people made it once, at 65, and never revisited it. Circumstances change — a new diagnosis, a specialist outside the network, a move, a snowbird arrangement, a spouse’s coverage ending.

The two paths, compared on what usually decides it

	Original Medicare + Part D (+ Medigap)	Medicare Advantage (Part C)
Provider access	Any provider nationwide who accepts Medicare	Plan network; referrals common in HMOs
Monthly cost	Higher — Part B + Part D + Medigap premium	Often $0 plan premium on top of Part B
Cost when you get sick	Very predictable with a Medigap policy	Copays and coinsurance up to an annual maximum
Extra benefits	Not included	Dental, vision, hearing, OTC, transportation vary by plan
Prior authorization	Rare	Common for imaging, surgery, skilled nursing
Travel and snowbirding	Works anywhere in the U.S.	Emergency care travels; routine care usually doesn’t
Switching back later	—	Medigap may require underwriting10

There is no universally correct answer, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Original Medicare with a Medigap policy costs more every month and asks almost nothing of you when you are seriously ill. Medicare Advantage costs less every month, bundles benefits Original Medicare doesn’t cover, and asks you to work inside a network with prior authorization. Which is better depends on your health, your doctors, your travel, and how you feel about a predictable bill versus a lower one.

The asymmetry to keep in mind is the one in the last row of that table. Moving from Original Medicare to Advantage is easy at any AEP. Moving back to Original Medicare and buying a Medigap policy may require passing underwriting, depending on your situation and timing.¹⁰ Treat the outbound trip as easier than the return.

6. Star ratings changed — read them carefully

Medicare rates Advantage and Part D plans from one to five stars, and Plan Compare puts the score right next to the premium.⁹ It is a genuinely useful signal — it reflects things you cannot easily observe from a brochure, like how often members appeal denials and win.

For 2027, CMS finalized structural changes to how those stars are calculated. It removed a set of measures — including several covering call-center performance — declined to implement the health-equity reward it had previously planned, kept the historical reward factor for consistently high performers, and added a measure tracking depression screening and follow-up.²

The practical consequence for you is narrow but real: a plan’s star rating this year is not measuring exactly what it measured last year, so a half-star movement may reflect the scoring change rather than a change in the plan. Use stars as one input among several — and weight the measures that map to your own life. A four-star plan that covers your oncologist beats a four-and-a-half-star plan that doesn’t.

7. How to actually compare plans: five checks

Nearly every expensive Medicare mistake we see traces back to comparing plans on premium alone. Premium is the one number that is easy to find and the one number that is least likely to determine what you actually spend. Work through these five instead.

1. Price your actual drug list. Enter every medication, dose, and quantity into Medicare’s Plan Compare tool with your regular pharmacy selected.⁵ It returns estimated annual total cost per plan — premium plus deductible plus copays. That total is the number to compare. Two plans $15 apart in premium can be $1,200 apart in total cost.
2. Verify your doctors and hospital, by phone. Online directories are frequently out of date. Call the plan and call the practice, and ask specifically whether they are in network for that plan — not merely whether they “accept Medicare.” Those are different questions.
3. Check the pharmacy tier. Most plans have preferred and standard pharmacies, and the same drug can cost meaningfully more at a standard one. Confirm that the pharmacy you actually walk into is a preferred pharmacy for that plan.
4. Look at the maximum out-of-pocket, not just the copays. Every Medicare Advantage plan has an annual ceiling on medical costs. That is your worst-case number for a bad year, and it varies widely between plans that otherwise look similar.
5. Read the prior-authorization list for the care you use. If you have a condition that needs regular imaging, infusions, or skilled nursing, find out what requires approval before you enroll rather than in the middle of treatment.

8. If you do nothing

Doing nothing is permitted, and sometimes it is correct. If your plan is continuing, your drugs are all still covered at the same tiers, your doctors are still in network, and your total projected cost is competitive, then staying put is a perfectly good decision — an informed one.

The problem is doing nothing without checking. If you take no action, you are automatically renewed into your plan’s 2027 version — next year’s premium, next year’s deductible, next year’s formulary, next year’s network. You are not renewed into the plan you have been happy with. You are renewed into a plan with the same name.

The three failure modes we see every February are always the same, and all three were visible in the ANOC in September:

• The drug moved tiers. A maintenance medication shifts from a preferred tier to a specialty tier and the copay multiplies.
• The doctor left the network. The patient finds out at the front desk, at an appointment they have already waited two months for.
• The plan left the county. The non-renewal notice went unopened, and January arrives with no drug coverage at all.

9. The January do-over

If you land on January 1 in a plan that is clearly wrong, you may not be stuck for the whole year. The Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period runs January 1 to March 31. If you are enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, it lets you make one change: switch to a different Advantage plan, or drop back to Original Medicare and pick up a stand-alone Part D plan.⁴

Its limits matter as much as its existence. It is only available to people already in an Advantage plan — if you are on Original Medicare on January 1, it does nothing for you. You get one change, not unlimited shopping. It does not let you join a Part D plan if you are staying on Original Medicare. And it carries no Medigap guarantee.¹⁰

Separately, certain life events — moving out of your plan’s service area, losing employer coverage, qualifying for Extra Help or Medicaid, or your plan being non-renewed — open a Special Enrollment Period on their own schedule.⁴ Treat all of these as safety nets, not as a plan. The full menu is only open between October 15 and December 7.

10. A South Florida lens

Florida is not an average Medicare market, and Broward County is not an average Florida market. Nationally, 55% of eligible Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicare Advantage in 2026, and Florida sits above that average — it is consistently among the highest Advantage-enrollment states in the country.¹² That has three consequences for how AEP actually plays out here.

• The marketing volume here is extraordinary. Between October and December, South Florida households get mail, television, radio, and phone outreach at a density few other markets see. Volume is not information. A plan advertised most aggressively in your ZIP code is not thereby the best plan in your ZIP code.
• Networks are dense but narrow. With this much Advantage enrollment, plans compete on network configuration, and a plan that includes the hospital system you use may exclude the specialist you have seen for a decade. In a market with this many overlapping networks, the doctor check is not optional.
• Language is a genuine cost. The ANOC arrives in dense English. So do formulary tables, prior-authorization rules, and appeal notices. Families who work through this in Creole, French, or Spanish tend to make better decisions because they are actually reading the document rather than guessing at it. That is most of what we do in October.

11. Your week-by-week AEP plan

1. Now — late August: Write down every medication with dose and quantity, and list your doctors, specialists, and preferred hospital and pharmacy. This is the raw material for every comparison you will make.
2. Late September: Watch for the ANOC. Open it the day it arrives. Work through the four questions in section 2 and mark anything that changed.
3. Early October: If anything material changed — a drug, a doctor, a benefit you rely on — plan to shop. If nothing did, you may still want a five-minute sanity check on total cost.
4. October 15: The window opens and Plan Compare shows 2027 plans. Run your drug list. Compare estimated annual totals, not premiums.
5. Late October: Shortlist two or three plans. Call each one and confirm your doctors and pharmacy, by phone, and ask about prior authorization for the care you use.
6. Early November: Decide and enroll. You will get confirmation from the plan — keep it.
7. By Thanksgiving: Be finished. This leaves you a real buffer if paperwork goes sideways.
8. December 7: Hard deadline. Enrollment must be received, not merely mailed.
9. January: Confirm your new card arrived, fill one prescription early to verify the pricing is what you expected, and confirm your first appointment is billed in network.

12. Frequently asked questions

What we'll do for you

JCKC Financial Services is an independent brokerage based in Broward County. We help South Florida families with the financial side of life — Medicare, ACA / Obamacare, life insurance, tax preparation, and notary services — in English, French, Creole, and Spanish.

For Annual Enrollment specifically, that means sitting down with your actual medication list and running it against every plan available in your ZIP code, so the comparison is built on your real annual cost rather than a headline premium. It means calling to verify your doctors and your pharmacy before you enroll, not after. It means reading the ANOC with you, in your language, and telling you plainly when the right answer is to change nothing — which it often is. And because we are independent, we are not steering you toward one carrier’s product.

There is no cost to have the conversation. Schedule a consultation or call (954) 825-9923. We’ll meet you in the office, online, or in the language you’re most comfortable with.

13. Sources

1. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Contract Year 2027 Medicare Advantage and Part D Final Rule — Part D redesign parameters, including the $2,400 annual out-of-pocket threshold, the $700 standard deductible, elimination of the coverage gap phase, and the deductible exemption for ACIP-recommended vaccines and covered insulin. cms.gov — CY2027 MA & Part D final rule
2. Federal Register. Medicare Program; Contract Year 2027 and Certain Contract Year 2026 Policy and Technical Changes to the Medicare Advantage Program and Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Program — Star Ratings measure removals, the historical reward factor, and the decision not to implement the health-equity reward. federalregister.gov — CY2027 final rule
3. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. July 28, 2026 Parts C & D Announcement — 2027 Part D base beneficiary premium ($41.33), national average monthly bid amount, and the conclusion of the Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration at the end of CY2026. cms.gov — July 28, 2026 Parts C & D announcement
4. Medicare.gov. Joining a plan — Annual Enrollment Period (October 15–December 7), Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment (January 1–March 31), Special Enrollment Periods, and the Annual Notice of Change. medicare.gov — joining a plan
5. Medicare.gov. Medicare Plan Compare — the official tool for pricing your drug list and comparing estimated annual costs across plans in your ZIP code. medicare.gov/plan-compare
6. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Medicare Prescription Payment Plan — capped monthly payments for out-of-pocket drug costs; all Part D plans are required to offer it. cms.gov — Medicare Prescription Payment Plan
7. Medicare.gov. Medicare costs — Part A, Part B, and Part D premiums, deductibles, and coinsurance. medicare.gov — Medicare costs
8. Boards of Trustees, Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds. 2026 Annual Report — projected Part B standard monthly premium for 2027 (approximately $209.50; 2026 actual $202.90). Official 2027 amounts are announced by CMS, typically in November. cms.gov — 2026 Medicare Trustees Report
9. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Part C and Part D performance data — the five-star quality rating system for Medicare Advantage and Part D plans. cms.gov — Part C & D performance data
10. Medicare.gov. Medigap — the six-month Medigap Open Enrollment Period beginning at age 65 with Part B, and medical underwriting outside guaranteed-issue situations. medicare.gov — Medigap
11. Florida Department of Elder Affairs. SHINE (Serving Health Insurance Needs of Elders) — Florida’s State Health Insurance Assistance Program, offering free and unbiased Medicare counseling. floridashine.org
12. KFF. Medicare Advantage in 2026: Enrollment Update and Key Trends — 55% of eligible Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage nationally, with state-level variation. kff.org — Medicare Advantage in 2026
13. KFF. Medicare Advantage 2026 Spotlight: A First Look at Plan Offerings — changes in the number and availability of Medicare Advantage plans by market. kff.org — Medicare Advantage 2026 plan offerings

Disclaimer: JCKC Financial Services is a licensed independent insurance brokerage that also provides tax preparation and notary services. We are not connected with or endorsed by the U.S. government or the federal Medicare program, and we are not a law firm and do not provide legal advice. Enrollment periods, the Part D out-of-pocket cap and deductible, Star Ratings methodology, Medigap rights, and plan availability are set by federal law, CMS, and individual carriers, and are subject to change; 2027 figures reflect amounts published by CMS as of August 2026 and the 2027 Part B premium had not yet been announced at the time of writing. Plan premiums, formularies, networks, and benefits vary by plan and by county and should be confirmed directly with the plan or on Medicare.gov before you rely on them. This article is general information only and is not legal, tax, financial, or insurance advice or a substitute for guidance from a licensed professional about your specific situation.