Medicare Advantage

Before Dec. 7: a Mesa reader's ANOC checklist for 2027 Medicare coverage

People in Mesa can choose from 92 Medicare Advantage plans for 2027, against 88 this year. 13 of this year’s plans are gone, 17 are new to Maricopa County, and 33 that continue have changed their premium, deductible, plan type or name, 13 of them under a new name.

MESA, Ariz. — October 2026. If you have a Medicare Advantage or Part D plan, a thick envelope from your insurer should already be on your kitchen counter. That is the Annual Notice of Change, or ANOC, and it is the single most useful document you will read this fall. It tells you what your current plan will look like on January 1, 2027 — the premium, the drug list, the pharmacy network, the doctors, the extras. The window to switch, if you want to, runs October 15 through December 7, 2026.

Here is a plain checklist to work through before that date, written for people in Mesa and the rest of Maricopa County.

Step 1: Actually open the ANOC

The ANOC arrives by late September. It is usually a short booklet (or a PDF, if you went paperless) with a side-by-side table: "This year" vs. "Next year." Focus on these lines:

• Monthly plan premium
• Annual deductible (medical and drug)
• Primary care and specialist copays
• Hospital stay costs
• The drug tier structure
• Any extras you actually use — dental, vision, hearing, OTC allowance, transportation, fitness

If a number moved, circle it. If a benefit disappeared, circle it twice. The ANOC will also tell you if your plan is being discontinued for 2027 — rare, but it happens, and it triggers a Special Enrollment Period.

Step 2: Re-check your doctors and hospitals

A plan's provider network is not frozen. Doctors join, doctors leave, and hospital systems renegotiate contracts every year. Before December 7:

• Pull up next year's provider directory on your plan's website (look for the 2027 version, not 2026).
• Search for each of your current providers — primary care doctor, specialists, your preferred hospital.
• Call the office and ask: "Are you contracted with [plan name] for 2027?" Front-desk staff often know before the directories update.

In Mesa, that usually means confirming with Banner Health, HonorHealth, Dignity Health or Mayo Clinic facilities, depending on where you go. Hospital affiliation matters because it determines which emergency room, imaging center and specialists are in-network.

Step 3: Run your prescription list

This is the step people skip, and it is the one that bites. Plans update their formularies every January. A drug that was Tier 2 this year can move to Tier 3 — or off the list entirely — next year.

• Make a list of every prescription you take, with the dose and how often.
• Log in to the Medicare Plan Finder at medicare.gov/plan-compare. It refreshes with 2027 plan data in early October.
• Enter your drugs and your preferred pharmacy. The tool will show total projected drug costs for the year under each plan available to you.
• Note that the Part D out-of-pocket cap rises to $2,400 in 2027, up from $2,100 in 2026. The Part D maximum deductible is $700 for 2027, up from $615 in 2026. Those are program-wide ceilings; your specific plan may set lower numbers.

If your drug costs are front-loaded in the year, ask your plan about the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan, which spreads out-of-pocket drug costs across monthly bills.

Step 4: Know what's on the shelf in Maricopa County

Mesa is in Maricopa County, where CMS lists 88 Medicare Advantage plans from 16 carriers for 2026, nearly all with drug coverage built in, and 36 of them Special Needs Plans for people with specific conditions, dual Medicaid eligibility, or institutional care needs.

The carriers offering plans in the county 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 2027 lineup will post to Plan Finder in October — the table below lists every plan on offer so you can see the full roster at a glance.

Step 5: Think about Part B and IRMAA — but wait on the numbers

The 2027 Part B standard premium and deductible have not yet been announced. CMS typically publishes them in November, along with the 2027 IRMAA income brackets that determine whether higher-income beneficiaries pay a surcharge. For reference, in 2026 the IRMAA surcharges begin above $109,000 in income for a single filer. Watch for the official announcement; don't rely on projections circulating online.

Step 6: Mark the deadline, then decide

December 7 is the last day to make a change for January 1, 2027 coverage. After that, Medicare Advantage enrollees get one more chance during the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period, January 1 – March 31, to switch to a different Advantage plan or drop back to Original Medicare. That window does not apply to someone on Original Medicare looking to join an Advantage plan or a stand-alone Part D plan.

If your current plan still fits — your doctors are in-network, your drugs are covered at a tier you can live with, the premium change is one you can absorb — doing nothing is a valid choice. Your plan renews automatically.