Medicare 2026

Kansas City Medicare help from SHIP and licensed agents

Kansas City, Kan. — If Medicare feels like a maze, you are not alone. With dozens of choices, mailers stacking up, and TV ads promising the moon, many people near retirement age just want a straight answer from someone who is not trying to sell them anything. The good news: that kind of help exists in Kansas City, and much of it is free.

Start with SHICK, the Kansas SHIP

Every state has a State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP). In Kansas, it is called SHICK — Senior Health Insurance Counseling for Kansas. SHICK counselors are trained volunteers and staff who answer Medicare questions one-on-one. They do not sell plans, do not earn commissions, and are not tied to any insurance company.

You can reach SHICK at 1-800-860-5260 or find a local counselor through the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services (KDADS) website. Appointments are usually free and can be done by phone or in person.

SHICK can help you:

• Understand the parts of Medicare (A, B, C, and D)
• Compare plans on Medicare.gov's Plan Finder
• Apply for Extra Help or the Medicare Savings Program if your income is limited
• Sort out billing problems or appeals

What licensed agents do (and don't do)

Licensed insurance agents in Kansas can also walk you through your options. A good local agent knows the carriers, can enroll you in a plan, and stays available if problems come up later. Agents are paid by the insurance companies whose plans they sell, so they are only allowed to talk about plans they are contracted with.

That is not a bad thing — it just means their role is different from a SHICK counselor's. Many people use both: SHICK for a neutral overview, and an agent to finalize enrollment.

A few tips when working with an agent:

• Ask which carriers they represent. If they only offer one or two, you are seeing a slice of the market.
• Never share your Medicare number until you have decided to work with them.
• Confirm they are licensed in Kansas. You can verify through the Kansas Insurance Department.

Where Kansas City fits on the map

Kansas City is in Wyandotte County, where 47 Medicare Advantage plans were available for 2026, offered by 8 carriers with drug coverage built in. There were no stand-alone Part D plans listed at the county level for 2026, which is unusual and worth a conversation with a SHICK counselor or agent if you are staying on Original Medicare and need drug coverage. The 2027 lineup is in each plan's ANOC and on Medicare.gov's Plan Finder.

Roughly 22,300 residents of Wyandotte County are age 65 or older, so demand for good guidance is real — and getting on someone's calendar in the fall can take a couple of weeks.

Free resources beyond SHICK

• Medicare.gov — the official site. The Plan Finder tool lets you enter your prescriptions and see how plans compare on total yearly cost.
• 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) — 24/7 help directly from Medicare.
• Wyandotte County senior centers and public libraries — often host Medicare education events in October before Annual Enrollment.
• Social Security Administration — for enrollment in Parts A and B and questions about premiums or IRMAA surcharges (which begin above $109,000 in income for a single filer in 2026).

A few numbers worth knowing for 2027

These are program-wide rules, not tied to any one plan:

• The Part D out-of-pocket cap is $2,100 in 2026. Once you hit that, you pay nothing more for covered drugs the rest of the year.
• The maximum Part D deductible is $615.
• The old "donut hole" coverage gap is gone as of 2025 — Part D now has three phases.
• The Medicare Prescription Payment Plan lets you spread drug costs across the year in monthly payments instead of paying all at once at the pharmacy.