Medicare Advantage

Charlottesville-Area Medicare Plans for 2027

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — If you live in or near Charlottesville and you're sorting through Medicare choices for 2027, one of the first questions to answer is a simple one: how many plans actually serve your address? Availability isn't uniform across Virginia. It's set county by county, so the lineup you see depends on where your mailbox sits.

What Charlottesville-Area Shoppers Will See for 2027

This guide walks through what "plan availability" means in the Charlottesville metro, how the numbers stack up locally, and how to think through your options before the Annual Enrollment Period ends on December 7.

Availability Is a County Thing, Not a City Thing

Medicare Advantage and stand-alone Part D drug plans are approved to serve specific counties. Charlottesville sits inside Charlottesville City, which Medicare treats as its own county-equivalent for plan purposes. Nearby areas — Albemarle, Greene, Fluvanna, Louisa, Nelson, and Buckingham — each have their own plan lineups, and those lineups may look different from what's offered inside the city limits.

That's why two neighbors just a few miles apart can see different plan menus. When you use Medicare's Plan Finder, always enter your ZIP code so the results match the county you actually live in.

The Numbers for Charlottesville City (2026 Landscape)

Here's the area-level picture for Charlottesville City, based on CMS Medicare Advantage and Part D Landscape data:

• 47 Medicare Advantage plans are available in the county.
• 5 carriers offer Medicare Advantage with prescription drug coverage (MA-PD) in the area.
• 0 stand-alone Part D drug plans are listed for the area in the current landscape file. (Stand-alone Part D availability is typically broader by region; confirm your specific options at medicare.gov.)
• The 65+ population in Charlottesville City is about 6,118.

These counts describe what's on the shelf. They don't tell you which plan fits your doctors, medications, or budget — that's the personal work of comparing.

How to Decide When You Have a Long List

Forty-seven Medicare Advantage plans is a lot to sift through. A few steps can shrink the list quickly:

1. Start with your doctors and hospitals. Not every plan contracts with every provider. If keeping your current care team matters, check each plan's network before anything else. 2. Add your prescriptions. Plug your drug list into Plan Finder. Formularies (the list of covered drugs) and pharmacy networks vary widely. 3. Think about how you use care. If you travel often or split time between states, ask how the plan handles out-of-area care. 4. Look at total cost, not just premium. Premiums, deductibles, copays, and out-of-pocket maximums all shape what you'll actually spend. 5. Consider Original Medicare + a Medigap policy + a Part D plan as an alternative path. It's a different structure with different tradeoffs.

Program Rules Worth Knowing for 2027

Some things aren't specific to Charlottesville — they apply nationwide and can shape your decision:

• The Part D out-of-pocket cap is $2,100 in 2026 and $2,400 in 2027. Once your covered drug spending reaches that amount, you pay nothing for covered drugs the rest of the year.
• The Part D deductible maximum is $615 in 2026 ($700 in 2027). Plans can charge less, but not more.
• The coverage gap ("donut hole") is gone as of 2025. Part D now has three phases instead of four.
• The Medicare Prescription Payment Plan lets you spread drug costs across the year in monthly payments instead of paying at the pharmacy counter. It's optional.
• IRMAA — higher Part B and Part D premiums for higher-income beneficiaries — kicks in above $109,000 in income for a single filer in 2026.
• Star Ratings are CMS's quality measure for plans on a 1–5 scale. In the Charlottesville City landscape, no contracts serving the area are currently rated 4 stars or higher. Ratings are one signal among many, and they can shift year to year.

Dates to Circle

• Annual Enrollment Period: October 15 – December 7, 2026. Changes made now take effect January 1, 2027.
• Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period: January 1 – March 31. If you're already in a Medicare Advantage plan on January 1 and it isn't working, you get one switch during this window.