Medicare Advantage

Phoenix Medicare checklist for 2027: what to review before Dec. 7

For 2027, Phoenix is looking at 92 Medicare Advantage plans: 17 new, 13 gone since 2026, and 33 still here but changed on premium, deductible, plan type or name, 13 of them under a new name. Below, how the lineup shifted in Maricopa County and what to compare, with no plan ranked or recommended.

PHOENIX — It is fall 2026, which means Annual Enrollment is here and Medicare mailboxes in Phoenix are filling up. From now through December 7, 2026, you can switch, drop, or join a Medicare Advantage or Part D plan. Any change you make takes effect January 1, 2027. If you do nothing, your current plan simply renews — with whatever changes the insurer spelled out in its Annual Notice of Change.

That renewal is the catch. Plans update their rules every year — the drugs on the formulary, the pharmacies in-network, the specialists you can see without a referral, the copays for a hospital stay. A plan that fit you perfectly in 2026 may look different in 2027. The purpose of this checklist is to help Phoenix readers walk through the review in an afternoon.

Step 1: Read the Annual Notice of Change

If you are already in a Medicare Advantage or Part D plan, your insurer mailed (or emailed) an Annual Notice of Change in late September. It is the single most useful document you will get all year.

Compare line by line against your 2026 plan:

• The monthly premium for 2027.
• The medical deductible, if any.
• Primary care, specialist, urgent care and hospital copays.
• The maximum out-of-pocket limit.
• Extra benefits — dental, vision, hearing, over-the-counter, fitness.
• The drug deductible and tier structure.

If anything surprises you, that is your signal to keep looking.

Step 2: Check your doctors and hospitals

Networks change every year. Before you renew, confirm your providers are still in-network for 2027 — not 2026.

• Call your primary care doctor's office and ask which Medicare Advantage plans they will accept in 2027.
• Do the same for any specialist you see regularly.
• Check the hospital you would want in an emergency — in the Phoenix metro that often means Banner, HonorHealth, Dignity Health, Mayo Clinic or Abrazo. Network status with a given plan can shift from year to year.
• Use the plan's online provider directory, but verify by phone when it matters. Directories lag.

Step 3: Price your prescriptions against the 2027 formulary

Drug coverage is where most people's costs actually move. Pull your medication list — names, doses, how often you fill — and run it through the plan's 2027 formulary.

Two tools help:

• The plan's own formulary document, posted with the ANOC.
• The Medicare Plan Finder at Medicare.gov, which lets you enter your drugs and pharmacy and see estimated annual costs across every plan available at your ZIP code.

Two 2027 figures from CMS worth knowing: the Part D out-of-pocket cap is $2,400 (up from $2,100 in 2026), and the maximum Part D deductible is $700 (up from $615 in 2026). Once you hit the cap, you pay $0 for covered drugs the rest of the year. If drug costs are a strain month-to-month, ask about the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan, which spreads your share across the calendar year.

Step 4: See the full Phoenix-area lineup

Plan availability is set at the county level. Phoenix is in Maricopa County, where CMS lists 88 Medicare Advantage plans from 16 carriers for 2026, all including drug coverage. The mix is 55 HMOs, 16 HMO-POS and 17 PPOs, with 36 of the 88 structured as Special Needs Plans for people with specific conditions, dual Medicare-Medicaid eligibility, or who live in a nursing facility.

The carriers offering plans in Maricopa 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 table below lists every plan by carrier so you can see your options side by side.

The 2027 lineup posts to Medicare.gov in October — that is where you compare apples-to-apples for next year.

Step 5: Don't forget Part B and Medigap

If you have Original Medicare with a Medigap (Medicare Supplement) plan and a stand-alone Part D plan, Annual Enrollment is mainly about your Part D choice — Medigap has its own rules and can be shopped year-round, though medical underwriting may apply after your initial enrollment window.

CMS announces the 2027 Part B standard premium and deductible later this fall, usually in November, along with the 2027 IRMAA income brackets that determine higher-income surcharges. For 2026, IRMAA begins above $109,000 in income for a single filer. Watch Medicare.gov for the 2027 figures as soon as they post.

Step 6: Mark the deadline, and know what comes after

December 7, 2026 is the last day to make an Annual Enrollment change for 2027. If you are already in a Medicare Advantage plan and want to switch to a different Advantage plan — or go back to Original Medicare — you also have the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period, January 1 – March 31, 2027, as a second window. That window does not let you jump into Advantage from Original Medicare for the first time.