Medicare Advantage

Sacramento Has 38 Medicare Plans — Review Yours by Dec 7

Sacramento County has 32 Medicare Advantage plans for 2027. Compared with 2026, 13 plans are not coming back, 7 are new, and 23 continuing plans changed in some way you should check before December 7, 9 of them under a new name. This guide covers what those numbers mean for Sacramento, not which plan to pick.

SACRAMENTO — The envelope that landed in your mailbox in late September is the one that matters most this fall. It is called the Annual Notice of Change, or ANOC, and it spells out exactly how your Medicare Advantage or Part D plan will be different on January 1, 2027. If you want a change for next year, you have until December 7, 2026 to make it.

Sacramento is in Sacramento County, where CMS data for the 2026 plan year lists 38 Medicare Advantage plans from 10 carriers — a wide field to compare your current plan against. Even if you love your plan, this is the one time a year when the quiet changes buried in the ANOC are easy to catch before they catch you.

Start with the ANOC, page by page

The ANOC is a side-by-side: this year's plan on one side, next year's on the other. Carriers must send it by September 30, so it should already be in hand. Look specifically for:

• The monthly premium and the Part B giveback (if any).
• The medical deductible and primary care, specialist and ER copays.
• The drug deductible, tier structure and the pharmacies in the preferred network.
• Extras like dental, vision, hearing, OTC allowance and transportation — these are the benefits that tend to shrink quietly.
• The maximum out-of-pocket limit for the year.

If the ANOC says your plan is being discontinued or is not being offered in Sacramento County in 2027, you'll get a separate non-renewal letter. That triggers a Special Enrollment Period, but the simplest path is still to pick a replacement during AEP.

Check your doctors and hospitals for 2027

A plan's network can change on January 1 even if nothing else does. Before you decide to stay or switch:

1. Call each of your doctors and ask whether they will be in-network for your 2027 plan — by name — not just "do you take Medicare." 2. Confirm the hospital you'd choose in an emergency (Sutter, UC Davis Health, Dignity Health, Kaiser facilities) is still contracted for the plan you're considering. 3. If you see specialists, check referral and prior-authorization rules for next year, which the Evidence of Coverage spells out in detail.

Provider directories online can lag behind reality, so a phone call to the office is worth the ten minutes.

Run your prescriptions through Plan Finder

Formularies — the lists of covered drugs — reset every January. A medication on Tier 2 this year can land on Tier 3 next year, or require step therapy, or move off the list entirely.

The Medicare Plan Finder at medicare.gov lets you enter your drugs and your pharmacy and see each plan's 2027 estimated yearly cost. A few things worth knowing for next year:

• 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 in 2027, up from $615 in 2026.
• The Medicare Prescription Payment Plan — the option to spread drug costs across the year in monthly bills — continues in 2027. You have to opt in; it is not automatic.

CMS has not yet published the 2027 Part B standard premium, Part B deductible or IRMAA income brackets. Those usually come out in November, so watch for them before you lock in a decision.

Know what's on the shelf in Sacramento County

For 2026, Sacramento County's 38 Medicare Advantage plans break down as 29 HMOs, 5 HMO-POS plans and 4 PPOs, and 16 of them are Special Needs Plans built for people with specific chronic conditions, dual Medicare-Medicaid eligibility or institutional needs. Every one of them includes drug coverage.

The 10 carriers offering plans in the county are Aetna (CVS Health), Alignment Health Plan, Centene (WellCare), Central Health Medicare Plan, Elevance Health (Anthem), Imperial Health Plan of California, Kaiser Permanente, Molina Healthcare of California, SCAN Health Plan and UnitedHealthcare. The table below lists every plan by carrier. The 2027 lineup for the county will be posted on the Plan Finder when AEP opens on October 15.

If you take Original Medicare plus a standalone Part D drug plan and a Medigap policy, your Medigap doesn't change at AEP — but your Part D plan can, and should be reviewed the same way.

A short checklist to work through

• Pull out your ANOC and highlight any line where the 2027 number is different from 2026.
• List your doctors, your hospital and every prescription with dose and pharmacy.
• Open medicare.gov/plan-compare, enter the list, and compare your current plan against two or three alternatives.
• Call 1-800-MEDICARE (TTY 1-877-486-2048), open 24/7, with questions specific to your situation.
• Make your choice — or decide to keep what you have — by December 7, 2026.

If you miss December 7 and want to switch Medicare Advantage plans or move back to Original Medicare, the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period runs January 1 – March 31, 2027, but it only lets you make one change.