Medicare Advantage

Medicare and Medicaid in Tennessee: 16 Dual Special Needs Plans for 2027

NASHVILLE — For 2027, Tennesseans who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid (TennCare) will have 16 Dual Special Needs Plans to consider statewide, part of a broader slate of 155 Medicare Advantage plans listed in the CMS Landscape Source Files for the coming plan year. Dual Special Needs Plans, or D-SNPs, are a type of Medicare Advantage plan built specifically for people who hold both forms of coverage. The choices available to any one person depend on the county they live in, and eligibility must be confirmed by the state Medicaid agency.

What is a D-SNP in Tennessee and who qualifies in 2027?

A Dual Special Needs Plan in Tennessee is a Medicare Advantage plan designed for people who have both Medicare and some level of Medicaid through TennCare, and all 16 D-SNPs listed for 2027 include drug coverage. These plans coordinate Medicare benefits with the help a member already receives from Medicaid, and enrollment is limited to people whose dual-eligible status is confirmed by the state.

Dual eligibility comes in two broad forms. "Full" dual eligibility means a person qualifies for full Medicaid benefits in addition to Medicare. "Partial" dual eligibility covers the Medicare Savings Programs — for example, categories such as QMB — where Medicaid helps with Medicare premiums and, in some cases, cost sharing, but does not provide full Medicaid benefits. Each D-SNP is designed for a particular dual-eligible category, and TennCare, not the plan or an agent, is the authority that confirms which category a person falls into. One of the Humana plans listed for 2027, for instance, is specifically named for the QMB population, which is a signal of the subgroup it is designed to serve.

How many D-SNPs are offered in Tennessee for 2027, and which carriers offer them?

Tennessee's 2027 Medicare Advantage landscape includes 16 D-SNPs out of 155 total Medicare Advantage plans, alongside 27 Chronic Condition SNPs (C-SNPs) and 7 Institutional SNPs (I-SNPs). Five carriers offer D-SNPs in the state for 2027: BlueCare Plus Tennessee (3 plans), Elevance Health (Anthem) (3), HealthSpring (1), Humana (2), and UnitedHealthcare (7).

The full plan-by-plan list — including plan names such as BlueCare Plus (HMO D-SNP), the Wellpoint Full Dual Advantage family from Elevance Health, HealthSpring TotalCare Plus, the two Humana D-SNPs, and the UHC Dual Complete plans — appears in the table on this page. A few points are worth noting from that table: several UnitedHealthcare plans are new for 2027, and a handful of plans across carriers have been renamed from their 2026 versions, including a Humana plan previously known as Humana Gold Plus SNP-DE H4461-038 and a UnitedHealthcare plan previously known as UHC Dual Complete TN-Y001. Each plan is offered in a specific set of counties — some in as few as 21 and others in as many as 95 — so the statewide list is a menu, not a guarantee of local availability.

How often can a dual-eligible person in Tennessee change plans in 2027?

People with both Medicare and Medicaid in Tennessee generally have more flexibility to change Medicare Advantage or Part D plans than people with Medicare alone. Under current Medicare rules, full-benefit dual eligibles and many partial duals qualify for a Special Enrollment Period that allows one change per calendar quarter during the first three quarters of the year — January through March, April through June, and July through September. A change made in one of those windows takes effect the first day of the following month.

In the fourth quarter, that quarterly SEP is replaced by the Annual Enrollment Period, which runs October 15 through December 7, 2026, for coverage that begins January 1, 2027. People who become newly eligible for Medicaid, lose Medicaid, or have a change in their dual-eligible category may also qualify for additional Special Enrollment Periods. The exact rules for any individual situation can be confirmed through Medicare.gov or 1-800-MEDICARE.

How do I check which D-SNPs are offered in my Tennessee county for 2027?

The way to check whether a specific D-SNP is offered in a specific Tennessee county for 2027 is the Medicare Plan Finder at medicare.gov, which lets a user enter a ZIP code and see the plans available locally. The statewide D-SNP list on this page shows every plan offered somewhere in Tennessee, but a plan listed as "offered in 44 counties" or "offered in 95 counties" will not necessarily include every county, and the Plan Finder is the authoritative tool for county-level availability.

When reviewing a plan, the details that matter most — premium, deductible, copays, covered drugs, provider and pharmacy networks, extra benefits and star ratings — come from the Medicare Plan Finder, 1-800-MEDICARE, or the plan's own Evidence of Coverage and provider and pharmacy directories. Those are the documents that control, not any summary written about the plan.

Where can Tennesseans get free help with Medicare and Medicaid questions for 2027?

Free, official help with Medicare questions in Tennessee is available from Medicare directly at 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227), which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and from the Medicare.gov website. For questions about Medicaid eligibility — the step that determines whether a person can enroll in a D-SNP in the first place — the authority in Tennessee is the state Medicaid agency, TennCare.

For questions about qualifying for Medicare itself, or for enrolling in Original Medicare, the Social Security Administration is the agency to contact. Together, these three channels — Medicare, TennCare and Social Security — cover the questions that come up most often for people navigating both programs.