Medicare Advantage

Baltimore Medicare checklist: what to review in your 2027 plan before Dec. 7

Baltimore city has 24 Medicare Advantage plans for 2027. Compared with 2026, 9 plans are not coming back, 2 are new, and 9 continuing plans changed in some way you should check before December 7, 1 of them under a new name. This guide covers what those numbers mean for Baltimore, not which plan to pick.

BALTIMORE — The mailer sitting on your kitchen counter this fall is doing real work. Every Medicare Advantage and Part D plan sold in Baltimore sends members an Annual Notice of Change (ANOC) by the end of September, spelling out what will be different about the plan in 2027. Between now and Dec. 7, 2026, you have time to read it, compare it against your doctors, hospitals and prescriptions, and decide whether to stay or switch. If you do nothing, your current plan simply renews on Jan. 1 — with next year's changes baked in.

Here is a plain checklist for Baltimore residents, built around the dates and documents that actually matter.

Start with the Annual Notice of Change

Your ANOC should have arrived by Sept. 30. It is usually a slim booklet, and it is organized as a side-by-side: "2026" in one column, "2027" in the next. Flip to the sections that cover:

• Monthly premium, medical deductible, and the plan's maximum out-of-pocket limit
• Primary care, specialist, urgent care, and hospital cost-sharing
• The drug deductible and the tiers your prescriptions sit on
• Extra benefits like dental, vision, hearing, over-the-counter and fitness
• The service area — in rare cases, a plan stops being offered in Baltimore city

If you cannot find your ANOC, call the member services number on the back of your plan card and ask them to resend it, or download it from your plan's member portal. The longer, more detailed version is called the Evidence of Coverage (EOC); the ANOC summarizes what has changed, the EOC is the full rulebook.

Check your doctors and hospitals against the 2027 network

Networks are set plan by plan, and they can shift from one year to the next. Before Dec. 7, confirm that each of these is still in-network for 2027:

• Your primary care doctor
• Any specialists you see regularly (cardiology, oncology, orthopedics, behavioral health)
• The hospital system you prefer — in Baltimore, that often means Johns Hopkins, University of Maryland Medical System, MedStar, LifeBridge or Mercy
• Your pharmacy, including whether it is a "preferred" pharmacy on your plan

Two steps work best together: search the plan's online 2027 provider directory, and call the doctor's billing office to ask what Medicare Advantage plans they will accept next year. Offices often know before the directories are updated.

Re-price your prescriptions on the 2027 formulary

Drug coverage is where year-to-year changes tend to surprise people. A medication can move to a higher tier, require prior authorization, or drop off the formulary entirely. Make a list of every prescription you take — name, dose, and how often — and run it through the Medicare Plan Finder at medicare.gov once 2027 plans are loaded. The tool will show your estimated full-year drug cost under each plan available in your ZIP code.

A few program-level numbers to anchor your math:

• In 2026, Part D out-of-pocket costs are capped at $2,100, with a maximum deductible of $615.
• In 2027, that cap rises to $2,400 and the maximum deductible to $700.
• The old "donut hole" is gone — Part D now has three phases (deductible, initial coverage, catastrophic).
• If drug costs hit hard in any single month, the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan lets you spread them across the rest of the plan year at no extra charge.

CMS typically announces the 2027 Part B standard premium, deductible and IRMAA income brackets later in the fall; those figures are not final yet, so do not plan around estimates.

Know what Baltimore has to choose from

Medicare plan availability is set at the county level. Baltimore is in Baltimore city, where the 2026 CMS Landscape file lists 31 Medicare Advantage plans from 10 carriers — 25 HMOs, 3 HMO-POS and 3 PPOs — and 17 of those are Special Needs Plans for people with Medicaid, a chronic condition, or who live in an institutional setting. Every plan on the Baltimore city list includes drug coverage.

The 10 carriers offering plans in Baltimore city for 2026 are Alterwood Advantage, Blue Cross Blue Shield (HCSC) HealthSpring, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield Advantage DualPrime, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield Medicare Advantage, Communicare Advantage, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, KeyCare Advantage, Provider Partners Health Plans, and UnitedHealthcare. The table below lists every plan offered. The 2027 roster will be visible on medicare.gov as soon as plans load for the new year.

A short pre-Dec. 7 checklist

Use this as a one-page worksheet:

1. Pull out your ANOC and highlight any 2027 number that is different from 2026. 2. List your doctors, hospitals and pharmacy, and confirm each is in-network for 2027. 3. List every prescription with its dose, and price it on medicare.gov under your current plan and at least two alternatives. 4. Check whether your plan is still offered in Baltimore city next year. 5. If something no longer fits, make the change in the Plan Finder or by calling 1-800-MEDICARE (TTY 1-877-486-2048), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 6. Save a confirmation number for any change you make.

If you miss Dec. 7 and you are in a Medicare Advantage plan, you get one more window: the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period from Jan. 1 to March 31, 2027, when you can switch Advantage plans once or return to Original Medicare.