Medicare Advantage

Arlington D-SNPs for 2027: 22 Plans, 7 Carriers

People in Arlington can choose from 83 Medicare Advantage plans for 2027, against 89 this year. 28 of this year’s plans are gone, 22 are new to Tarrant County, and 32 that continue have changed their premium, deductible, plan type or name, 10 of them under a new name.

ARLINGTON, Texas — October 2026. If you have both Medicare and Medicaid, you have a specific kind of Medicare Advantage plan built for your situation: a Dual Eligible Special Needs Plan, or D-SNP. For plan year 2027, Tarrant County — the county Arlington sits in — will have 22 D-SNPs on the Medicare Plan Finder, from seven carriers, according to the CMS Medicare Advantage Landscape Source File. The Annual Enrollment Period runs October 15 through December 7, 2026, with any change taking effect January 1, 2027.

What a D-SNP is, in plain terms

A D-SNP is a type of Medicare Advantage plan designed only for people who are "dual eligible" — meaning they have both Medicare and Medicaid. It covers everything Original Medicare covers (Parts A and B), it includes Part D drug coverage, and it is built to work alongside the help you get from Texas Medicaid.

Because members are dual eligible, D-SNPs tend to be structured around that reality: coordinated care, help navigating two programs, and benefit designs that reflect what Medicaid already covers. Specific benefits, provider networks, drug lists and costs vary plan by plan, so the Medicare Plan Finder at medicare.gov is where to check the details for any plan you are considering.

Who qualifies: full vs. partial dual eligibility

"Dual eligible" is not a single category. In Texas, the common groupings are:

• Full dual eligible — you have Medicare and full Texas Medicaid benefits.
• Partial dual eligible — you have Medicare and one of the Medicare Savings Programs that help pay Medicare costs, such as the Qualified Medicare Beneficiary (QMB) program, Specified Low-Income Medicare Beneficiary (SLMB), or Qualifying Individual (QI).

Different D-SNPs are built for different groups. Some are only for full duals; others are only for people in QMB. You can see that reflected in the 2027 plan names in Tarrant County — for example, Aetna offers plans aimed at full dual members and separate plans aimed at QMB-only members.

Your eligibility level is determined by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (the state Medicaid agency), not by the Medicare plan. If you are not sure which category you fall into, call Texas Health and Human Services at 2-1-1 or check your Medicaid letter before you shop.

The 22 D-SNPs offered in Tarrant County for 2027

CMS lists 22 D-SNPs in Tarrant County for 2027, from seven carriers. The full table on this page lists each plan by carrier; here are the carriers and how many D-SNPs each has for 2027:

• Aetna (CVS Health): 4
• Centene (WellCare): 4
• Elevance Health (Anthem): 3
• HealthSpring: 2
• Humana: 3
• Molina Healthcare of Texas, Inc.: 1
• UnitedHealthcare: 5

A number of these are new or renamed for 2027. New D-SNPs for next year in the county include Aetna Medicare QMB Only Care, Wellcare Superior HealthPlan Dual Liberty, Wellcare Superior HealthPlan Dual Reserve Value, Wellpoint Dual Advantage Plus Select, Wellpoint Dual Advantage Select, Wellpoint Full Dual Advantage Select, HealthSpring TotalCare Plus, UHC Dual Advantage TX-V11, UHC Dual Complete TX-Q6, UHC Dual Complete TX-S6 and UHC Dual Complete TX-YL2. Several Aetna and Wellcare D-SNPs have been renamed from their 2026 versions. For a side-by-side list, the table below shows each plan with its carrier and plan type.

Beyond D-SNPs, Tarrant County also has 14 Chronic Condition SNPs (C-SNPs) and 7 Institutional SNPs (I-SNPs) for 2027. Those are for different situations — a qualifying chronic condition, or living in a long-term care setting — and are separate from dual eligibility.

How often you can change plans

Most people with Medicare can only change Medicare Advantage or Part D plans during set windows: the Annual Enrollment Period (October 15 – December 7) and the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period (January 1 – March 31).

People who have Medicaid or who get Extra Help with drug costs generally have more flexibility. Under current rules, dual eligibles and Extra Help enrollees have a monthly Special Enrollment Period that lets them, once per month, either join an integrated D-SNP that aligns with their Medicaid plan, or drop a Medicare Advantage plan and go back to Original Medicare with a stand-alone Part D plan. The exact wording of these rules has shifted in recent years, so call 1-800-MEDICARE to confirm which option fits your situation before you make a change.

A few basics still apply either way:

• If you do nothing during the fall window, your current plan simply renews for 2027 if it is still offered, with the changes spelled out in its Annual Notice of Change (ANOC).
• For 2027 in Tarrant County, 28 Medicare Advantage plans are not returning, 22 are new, and 10 have been renamed — so even a "do nothing" choice is worth a quick ANOC check.
• A change made in the Annual Enrollment Period takes effect January 1, 2027.

How to confirm your eligibility

Before you compare D-SNPs, confirm two things:

1. That you have Medicare. Your red, white and blue Medicare card shows your Part A and Part B coverage. You can also sign in at medicare.gov to see your enrollment. 2. That you have Medicaid, and at what level. In Texas, call 2-1-1 (Texas Health and Human Services) or sign in to YourTexasBenefits.com. Your award letter will show whether you have full Medicaid, QMB, SLMB or QI.

Once you know your category, you can match it to the D-SNPs built for that category. The Medicare Plan Finder at medicare.gov will only show you the D-SNPs you can actually enroll in once you enter your ZIP code and your Medicaid status, which cuts the list down quickly.

A few 2027 numbers worth knowing

These are program-wide figures, not plan-specific:

• The Part D out-of-pocket cap is $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 Part D national base beneficiary premium for 2027 is $41.33. This is a formula input, not what any specific plan charges.
• The 2027 Part B standard premium and deductible, and the 2027 IRMAA income brackets, have not been announced yet. CMS typically publishes them later in the fall.

Many people on a D-SNP get help with Part B and drug costs through Medicaid or Extra Help, so these caps may not land the same way they do for someone without that help.