Medicare Advantage

Columbus Medicare checklist for 2027: what to read in your ANOC before Dec. 7

People in Columbus can choose from 79 Medicare Advantage plans for 2027, against 92 this year. 27 of this year’s plans are gone, 14 are new to Franklin County, and 28 that continue have changed their premium, deductible, plan type or name, 5 of them under a new name.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The envelope that arrived in your mailbox in late September is the single most important piece of Medicare paperwork you'll see all fall. It's called the Annual Notice of Change, or ANOC, and it tells you exactly how your current Medicare Advantage or Part D plan will look in 2027. If you want to make a change, you have until December 7, 2026 to do it, with the new coverage starting January 1.

Here's a plain checklist to work through before the deadline — what to pull out of the ANOC, where to double-check your doctors and prescriptions, and how to see what else Franklin County has on the shelf this year.

Start with the ANOC — don't just file it

The ANOC is the "what's different next year" letter from your plan. It comes paired with the Evidence of Coverage (EOC), which is the full rulebook. Most people only need the ANOC to decide whether to stay put.

Sit down with it and look for:

• The monthly premium for 2027 and whether it changed from 2026.
• The drug deductible and the medical deductible, if any.
• Primary care, specialist, and urgent care copays.
• Hospital inpatient costs per day, and how many days that rate applies.
• The annual out-of-pocket maximum for medical services.
• Changes to extra benefits — dental, vision, hearing, over-the-counter allowance, fitness, transportation.
• The drug formulary — which tier each of your medications sits on in 2027, and whether any have moved or been dropped.

If your plan is a Medicare Advantage plan with drug coverage, remember the Part D rules are changing again. For 2027, CMS has confirmed the Part D out-of-pocket cap rises to $2,400 (up from $2,100 in 2026), and the Part D maximum deductible is $700 (up from $615 in 2026). Your plan's specific numbers may be lower, but they cannot exceed those limits.

Check your doctors and your hospital — in writing

Networks shift every year. A clinic that was in-network in 2026 may not be in 2027, and the opposite is also true.

Do this for each person on the plan:

1. Make a short list of the doctors you actually see — primary care, any specialists, your dentist if the plan includes dental. 2. Pull up the plan's 2027 provider directory on the carrier's website (ask for the plan year 2027 version, not the current one). 3. Search each provider by name and confirm they're listed as in-network for your specific plan. 4. Call the doctor's office and ask directly: "Are you taking this plan in 2027?" Offices often know before the directory updates. 5. Do the same check for your preferred hospital system. In Columbus, that often means confirming whether OhioHealth, Mount Carmel, OSU Wexner Medical Center, or Nationwide Children's facilities are in-network for your plan next year.

If you take a specialty medication, also check whether your pharmacy is still a preferred pharmacy on the plan — the cost difference between preferred and standard can be real.

Run every prescription through the 2027 formulary

This is the step most people skip, and it causes the most January surprises.

• List every drug you take, with the exact dose and quantity.
• Use the Medicare Plan Finder at medicare.gov — it lets you enter your drugs and pharmacy and see what each plan will charge in 2027.
• Watch for tier changes (a drug moving from Tier 2 to Tier 3, for example), new prior authorization requirements, step therapy, or quantity limits.
• If your drug costs still feel heavy, ask about the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan, which lets you spread Part D out-of-pocket costs across the calendar year instead of paying them all at once.

The coverage gap — the old "donut hole" — is gone. Part D now has three phases: deductible, initial coverage, and catastrophic (where you pay nothing more for covered drugs after you hit the cap).

See what else Franklin County offers

Columbus sits in Franklin County, where CMS lists 92 Medicare Advantage plans from 12 carriers for the 2027 plan year. By type: 37 HMOs, 17 HMO-POS, 37 PPOs, and 1 PFFS. Thirty of those are Special Needs Plans (for people who are dual-eligible for Medicaid, live with certain chronic conditions, or live in a nursing home). All 92 include prescription drug coverage.

The carriers offering Advantage plans in Franklin County this year are Aetna (CVS Health), CareSource MyCare Ohio, Centene (WellCare), Devoted Health, Elevance Health (Anthem), Humana, Medical Mutual of Ohio, MediGold, Molina Healthcare of Ohio, Perennial Advantage, The Health Plan, and UnitedHealthcare. The table below lists every plan.

Having 92 options can feel like too much. A reasonable way to narrow it:

• Filter first by plan type — HMO, PPO, or HMO-POS — based on how much flexibility you want outside the network.
• Then filter by your drugs and your doctors, using the two checks above.
• Only then compare monthly premiums, deductibles, and extras.

What CMS hasn't announced yet

Two numbers aren't public yet as of this writing: the 2027 Part B standard premium and deductible, and the 2027 IRMAA income brackets that determine whether higher-income enrollees pay a surcharge. CMS typically releases both in the fall, usually in November. Watch medicare.gov for the official announcement — don't rely on projections floating around online.

For reference, 2026's IRMAA surcharges start above $109,000 in income for a single filer.

If you do nothing

Your current plan renews on January 1, 2027, with the changes described in your ANOC. That's a legitimate choice if you've reviewed the ANOC, your doctors are still in-network, and your drugs are still covered on reasonable terms. It becomes a problem only if you haven't checked.

If after reviewing you want to switch, you can:

• Change from one Medicare Advantage plan to another.
• Switch from Medicare Advantage back to Original Medicare and add a standalone Part D plan.
• Switch from Original Medicare to Medicare Advantage.
• Join, drop, or change a standalone Part D plan.

All of those changes must be made by December 7, 2026, and all take effect January 1, 2027.