Medicare Advantage

Before Dec. 7 in San Antonio: a 2027 Medicare plan review you can finish in an afternoon

Bexar County has 98 Medicare Advantage plans for 2027. Compared with 2026, 28 plans are not coming back, 26 are new, and 36 continuing plans changed in some way you should check before December 7, 11 of them under a new name. This guide covers what those numbers mean for San Antonio, not which plan to pick.

SAN ANTONIO — It is fall 2026, the Annual Enrollment Period is open, and the window to lock in your 2027 Medicare coverage closes Dec. 7. If you do nothing, your current plan simply renews next year — but with whatever changes your insurer has already mailed you in the Annual Notice of Change. A short afternoon with that notice and a few other pages is usually enough to know whether your plan still fits.

San Antonio sits in Bexar County, where, according to the CMS Medicare Advantage Landscape Source File for plan year 2026, 15 carriers offer 100 Medicare Advantage plans. That is a lot of choices to sort through, which is why a checklist helps.

Step 1: Read the Annual Notice of Change

Every Medicare Advantage and Part D plan has to send its members an Annual Notice of Change (ANOC) by the end of September. It compares what you have in 2026 to what the same plan will look like in 2027 — premium, deductible, copays for the doctor and the hospital, drug tiers, and extra benefits like dental or over-the-counter cards.

Flip to the "what is changing" summary first. If the premium, your most-used copay, or your most-used drug's tier is different, mark it. Those three things drive most of the surprises people feel in January.

Step 2: Check your doctors and hospitals for 2027

A plan can keep the same name and still change its network. Before Dec. 7, confirm that:

• Your primary care doctor is listed in the plan's 2027 provider directory.
• Any specialist you see regularly is still in-network.
• The hospital system you prefer in San Antonio — whether that is Methodist, Baptist, University Health or another — is still contracted.

The safest way is to call your doctor's billing office and ask, by name, which 2027 plans they will accept. Networks for next year are usually loaded by mid-fall.

Step 3: Price your prescriptions against the 2027 formulary

Drug coverage is where small changes add up. Pull your prescription bottles, then look up each drug on the plan's 2027 formulary (the drug list). You want to check three things: whether the drug is still covered, what tier it is on, and whether it now requires prior authorization or step therapy.

Two program-wide changes to keep in mind:

• For 2027, the Part D out-of-pocket cap is $2,400 (up from $2,100 in 2026). Once you spend that much on covered drugs, you pay nothing for the rest of the year.
• The 2027 Part D maximum deductible is $700 (up from $615 in 2026). Plans can set a lower deductible, but not a higher one.
• If drug costs hit hard early in the year, ask about the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan, which spreads your out-of-pocket drug costs across monthly bills.

Step 4: Compare on your own terms

The table below lists every Medicare Advantage plan available in Bexar County for the 2026 plan year, grouped by carrier. Larger carriers in the county include Humana with 25 plans, UnitedHealthcare with 17, Blue Cross Blue Shield (HCSC) with 12, Aetna (CVS Health) with 9, Centene (WellCare) with 8 and Devoted Health with 8. Smaller carriers — Clover Health, Community First, ProCare Advantage, Molina Healthcare of Texas, SCAN Health Plan, Texas Independence Health Plan, American Health Advantage of Texas and Provider Partners Health Plans — round out the list.

Forty-one of the 100 plans are Special Needs Plans (SNPs) for people with specific chronic conditions, who have both Medicare and Medicaid, or who live in a nursing facility. If one of those situations applies to you, those plans are worth a closer look.

The quickest neutral comparison tool is the Medicare Plan Finder at Medicare.gov/plan-compare. You can enter your ZIP, your drugs and your pharmacy and see every plan side by side.

Step 5: Don't forget what Dec. 7 actually locks in

Dec. 7 is the deadline to:

• Switch from Original Medicare to a Medicare Advantage plan, or back.
• Change from one Medicare Advantage plan to another.
• Join, drop or change a stand-alone Part D drug plan.

Your choice starts Jan. 1, 2027. If you are already on a Medicare Advantage plan and change your mind in January, you get one more chance during the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period, Jan. 1 through March 31, to switch to a different Advantage plan or go back to Original Medicare.

A note on 2027 numbers you may be hearing about: the Part B standard premium and deductible, and the IRMAA income brackets that affect higher earners, have not been announced yet. CMS publishes those figures later in the fall, usually in November. In 2026, IRMAA surcharges start above $109,000 in income for a single filer.