Medicare 2026

Phoenix Medicare 2027: the Part D numbers CMS has locked, and what's still ahead

PHOENIX — Fall 2026 is here, and with it the yearly stretch when Medicare decisions get made. The Annual Enrollment Period runs October 15 through December 7, 2026, and any change made in that window takes effect January 1, 2027. CMS has already published some of the 2027 numbers that will shape Part D drug coverage, but a few of the biggest figures — including the Part B premium and the IRMAA income brackets — are still to come later this fall.

Here is what Phoenix residents can weigh now, and what to wait on before making a final call.

What CMS has confirmed for 2027

Three Part D figures are locked in for next year:

• Part D out-of-pocket cap: $2,400 in 2027 (up from $2,100 in 2026). Once your out-of-pocket spending on covered drugs reaches that cap, you pay $0 for the rest of the calendar year.
• Part D maximum deductible: $700 in 2027 (up from $615 in 2026). Individual plans can set a lower deductible, but none can go above this.
• Part D national base beneficiary premium: $41.33 for 2027. This is a formula input CMS uses — it is not what any specific plan charges.

The coverage gap (the old "donut hole") has been gone since 2025. Part D now has three phases: deductible, initial coverage, and catastrophic. The Medicare Prescription Payment Plan is also still available if you want to spread drug costs across the year in monthly amounts instead of paying them at the pharmacy counter.

What CMS has not announced yet

Two major 2027 numbers are still pending:

• The 2027 Part B standard premium and annual deductible.
• The 2027 IRMAA income brackets and surcharges (the extra amounts higher-income beneficiaries pay on top of Part B and Part D premiums).

CMS usually publishes these in November. We will not estimate them and would caution against acting on projections you may see elsewhere — the official numbers are worth waiting for, especially if you are near an income bracket where IRMAA might apply. For reference, in 2026 IRMAA surcharges begin above $109,000 in income for a single filer.

The ANOC letter: your most important piece of mail

If you are already in a Medicare Advantage or Part D plan, your insurer mailed you an Annual Notice of Change in September. It compares your 2026 plan to the same plan's 2027 version — premium, deductible, drug tiers, copays, provider network, extra benefits, and the pharmacies in the plan's preferred network.

Read it side by side with how you actually used the plan this year. The questions worth asking:

• Are my regular prescriptions still covered, and on the same tier?
• Are my doctors and preferred hospitals still in-network for 2027?
• Did any of the extras I use (dental, vision, hearing, OTC allowance, transportation) change?
• Is my pharmacy still a preferred pharmacy?

If nothing in the ANOC is a problem, you do not need to do anything — your plan renews automatically on January 1. If something is a problem, you have until December 7 to switch.

How plan availability is shifting in the Phoenix area

Medicare plan availability is set at the county level. Phoenix sits in Maricopa County, where CMS data for plan year 2026 shows 88 Medicare Advantage plans offered by 16 carriers, all of them with drug coverage included. By plan type that breaks down to 55 HMOs, 16 HMO-POS plans and 17 PPOs, with 36 Special Needs Plans in the mix for people with specific chronic conditions, dual Medicare-Medicaid eligibility, or institutional needs. There are no stand-alone Part D plans counted locally in this landscape file.

For 2027, CMS records show 13 plans not returning, 17 new plans, and 13 plans that have been renamed in the area. A rename does not mean the plan is the same under the hood — the ANOC is what tells you what actually changed.

The carriers offering Medicare Advantage with drug coverage locally for 2026, in alphabetical order, are Aetna (CVS Health), Alignment Health Plan, Banner Medicare Advantage, Blue Cross Blue Shield (HCSC), Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona, Centene (WellCare), Devoted Health, Elevance Health (Anthem), eternalHealth, Gold Kidney Health Plan, Humana, Mercy Care Advantage, Molina Healthcare of Arizona, SCAN Health Plan, UnitedHealthcare, and Verda Health Plan of Arizona. The table on this page lists every plan offered in Maricopa County; use it to see which plans sit under each carrier.

With roughly 742,814 Maricopa County residents aged 65 or older, the local market is one of the larger ones in the country, which is part of why the plan count is so high.

What to do between now and December 7

A short, practical sequence:

1. Read your ANOC against how you used the plan this year. 2. Make a list of your current medications, doctors and pharmacies. 3. Compare plans at Medicare.gov's Plan Finder, which lets you enter your drugs and see each plan's total projected cost. The table below on this page is a starting point for what is available in Maricopa County. 4. Wait for the Part B and IRMAA announcements if those figures matter to your budget — they usually post in November. 5. Decide by December 7, 2026. If you do nothing and your plan is returning, you keep it.

If you miss the window and you are in a Medicare Advantage plan, you still have one more chance: the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period from January 1 to March 31, which lets you switch to a different Advantage plan or back to Original Medicare once.