Medicare Advantage

Ohio Medicare Advantage Plans for Chronic Conditions in 2027: 24 C-SNPs

COLUMBUS — Ohioans living with certain long-term health conditions will have 24 Chronic Condition Special Needs Plans, or C-SNPs, to consider for 2027. These are a specialized slice of Medicare Advantage designed around people whose care revolves around a qualifying chronic illness verified by their provider. The figures and plan names in this article come from the CMS Medicare Advantage Landscape Source Files for contract year 2027.

Statewide, C-SNPs make up 24 of the 180 Medicare Advantage plans available in Ohio for 2027. Six carriers offer them. Availability is county by county, so a plan listed statewide may or may not be sold where you live.

What a C-SNP is and who qualifies

A Chronic Condition Special Needs Plan is a type of Medicare Advantage plan limited to people who have a specific severe or disabling chronic condition recognized by Medicare. To enroll, a provider must verify that you have the qualifying condition the plan is built for. If verification cannot be completed, enrollment generally cannot move forward.

C-SNPs include Part A and Part B coverage, and all 24 Ohio C-SNPs for 2027 include drug coverage. Beyond that shared structure, each plan sets its own rules, costs and care network, which is why plan details must come from the plan's own Evidence of Coverage, the official plan directories, or the Medicare Plan Finder — not from a summary like this one.

The statewide count and the carriers offering them

For 2027, Ohio's 24 C-SNPs are offered by six carriers, listed here alphabetically with the number of C-SNPs each has statewide:

• Aetna (CVS Health) — 8
• Communicare Advantage — 1
• Devoted Health — 7
• Humana — 1
• UnitedHealthcare — 3
• Zing Health — 4

For context, Ohio's other Special Needs Plan categories for 2027 include 11 Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans (D-SNPs) and 11 Institutional Special Needs Plans (I-SNPs). Those serve different populations and are not interchangeable with C-SNPs.

The full plan-by-plan list, including county counts and whether a plan is new or renamed for 2027, is rendered as a table on this page. A few examples of what's changing: Communicare Advantage is introducing CommuniCare Advantage CSNP (HMO C-SNP) as new for next year; Devoted Health has three plans that are new for next year — DEVOTED C-SNP GIVEBACK EXTRAS 023 OH, 024 OH and 025 OH — and three that were renamed from "PREMIUM" to "ENHANCED" (017 OH, 018 OH and 020 OH); and UnitedHealthcare is adding two new plans for next year, UHC Complete Care Support OH-1A and UHC Complete Care Support OH-2A.

The conditions named in plan names

Medicare rules let a C-SNP serve one qualifying condition or a defined group of related conditions. Some Ohio plan names state the condition directly, and some do not. Where a plan's name does not state a condition, this article does not assign one.

Plans whose names state the condition they serve:

• Humana Gold Plus - Diabetes and Heart (HMO C-SNP) — diabetes and heart.
• Zing Elite Diabetes & Heart OH (HMO C-SNP) — diabetes and heart.
• Zing Elite Essentials Diabetes & Heart OH (HMO C-SNP) — diabetes and heart.
• Zing Select Diabetes & Heart OH (HMO C-SNP) — diabetes and heart.
• Zing Select Dialysis OH (HMO C-SNP) — dialysis.

For the Aetna Medicare Chronic Care and Chronic Care Total plans, the Devoted Health C-SNP plans, the Communicare Advantage CSNP plan and the UnitedHealthcare Complete Care C-SNP plans, the plan name does not state a condition. To learn which qualifying condition each of those is built around, read the plan's Evidence of Coverage or confirm with the carrier before applying.

The Special Enrollment Period for people with a qualifying condition

Most people think of fall as the time to change Medicare coverage. For 2027 that window — the Annual Enrollment Period — runs October 15 through December 7, 2026, with coverage effective January 1, 2027.

C-SNPs are a bit different. Because enrollment hinges on having a specific chronic condition, people who qualify generally have a Special Enrollment Period that lets them join a C-SNP outside of AEP once the condition is verified. The SEP also allows a one-time change in certain situations, such as if someone is enrolled in a C-SNP and is later found not to have the qualifying condition. The specifics are set by CMS and are summarized on medicare.gov under Medicare enrollment periods.

Checking a plan in your county

Every C-SNP in Ohio is sold county by county. In the data block behind this article, county counts range from a plan offered in 3 counties to one offered in 78, with others in between. That means being "available in Ohio" is not the same as being available at your address.

The reliable way to check:

1. Go to the Medicare Plan Finder at medicare.gov and enter your ZIP code. 2. Filter for Special Needs Plans and look at the C-SNP results. 3. Match plans against the condition your provider has documented. 4. Review each plan's own materials — Summary of Benefits, Evidence of Coverage, pharmacy and provider directories — before deciding.

Plan Finder is also the authoritative place for premiums, deductibles, copays, drug lists, provider networks and star ratings. Those details change year to year and plan to plan, and should always be verified at the source rather than taken from a news article.

Free help

You do not have to sort through this alone, and you do not have to pay to get help understanding your options.

• Medicare.gov has the official Plan Finder, plan documents and enrollment tools.
• 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with TTY service at 1-877-486-2048.