Medicare Advantage

What’s Changing in Virginia Medicare Advantage for 2027: 16 Plans Leaving, 52 Changing

RICHMOND — Virginia's Medicare Advantage lineup is shifting again for the 2027 plan year, and every county in the Commonwealth has at least one plan either leaving the market or changing in some way. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Medicare Advantage Landscape Source Files for CY2026 and CY2027, 143 Medicare Advantage plans are offered in Virginia for 2026 and 148 are offered for 2027. Behind that small net change is a bigger reshuffling: 16 plans are leaving, 52 are changing, 21 are new for 2027, and 75 are continuing unchanged.

Medicare AdvantageVirginia

If you have a Medicare Advantage plan in Virginia today, this is the year to open the envelope.

What the statewide numbers mean

CMS publishes a Landscape file every fall that lists each Medicare Advantage plan offered in each county. Comparing the CY2026 and CY2027 files for Virginia, counting each plan once statewide no matter how many counties it serves, produces the headline numbers above.

CMS treats a plan as "leaving" when it was offered somewhere in Virginia for 2026 and is offered nowhere in Virginia for 2027. That's 16 plans. A plan is counted as "changing" when it is offered in both years but differs on premium, drug deductible, plan type, or plan name in at least one county between the two Landscape files. That's 52 plans. New plans — 21 of them — appear in the 2027 file but not the 2026 file. Continuing unchanged — 75 of them — look the same on those fields in both files.

Those labels describe what CMS's file shows. They are not judgments about any plan.

If your plan is leaving

If your plan is one of the 16 leaving Virginia for 2027, your carrier is required to send a non-renewal notice before the Annual Enrollment Period. You will not be automatically moved to another plan of your choosing — you need to pick one, or you'll fall back to Original Medicare.

You have two windows:

• The Annual Enrollment Period (AEP), October 15 – December 7, 2026, with your choice effective January 1, 2027.
• A Special Enrollment Period (SEP) for non-renewed members that runs through the end of February 2027, so you have additional time to choose a new Medicare Advantage plan or a stand-alone Part D plan after January 1 if needed.

If you do nothing and your plan is leaving, you'll be in Original Medicare starting January 1, 2027, without Part D drug coverage unless you add it.

If your plan is changing

If your plan is one of the 52 changing plans, it is still being offered in 2027 — but at least one of premium, drug deductible, plan type, or plan name is different in at least one county you may live in. The specifics are in your plan's Annual Notice of Change (ANOC), which carriers mail by late September. The ANOC compares your current year's plan to next year's, side by side.

Read it. Even if the name on the envelope is familiar, something on the CMS file is not the same for 2027.

If you do nothing, you'll stay enrolled in the renewing version of your plan on January 1, 2027, with whatever the ANOC describes. That may be fine. It also may not be — which is exactly why the ANOC exists and why AEP exists.

Counties with the most change

Every one of Virginia's 133 counties and independent cities sees at least one plan leave or change for 2027. A few stand out for the sheer volume of movement in the CMS file:

• Goochland County: 15 leaving, 24 changing
• Richmond City: 8 leaving, 28 changing
• Henrico County: 8 leaving, 27 changing
• Chesterfield County: 9 leaving, 25 changing
• Hanover County: 13 leaving, 21 changing
• Petersburg City: 9 leaving, 25 changing
• Dinwiddie County: 12 leaving, 21 changing
• Loudoun County: 9 leaving, 24 changing

These are counts, not rankings. A plan listed as "leaving" in one of these counties is leaving the entire state; a plan listed as "changing" is on the 52-plan statewide changing list.

What to do before December 7

A simple checklist for Virginia members this fall:

1. Watch the mail in September and early October for your ANOC (if your plan is renewing) or a non-renewal notice (if your plan is leaving). 2. Make a short list of what matters to you — your doctors, your pharmacy, your prescriptions, how you like to get care. 3. Compare your current plan's 2027 version against other plans available where you live, using Medicare.gov's Plan Finder. 4. Make a choice during AEP, October 15 – December 7, 2026, for coverage that starts January 1, 2027. 5. If your plan is not renewed and you need more time, use the Special Enrollment Period that runs through the end of February 2027.

Where to get free help

You do not have to sort this out alone, and you do not have to pay anyone to help you.

• Medicare.gov — the official federal site, with the Plan Finder tool that uses the same Landscape data referenced here.
• 1-800-MEDICARE — 24/7 phone help from Medicare directly.
• Virginia's State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) — free, one-on-one, unbiased Medicare counseling from trained local volunteers and staff. SHIP counselors do not sell insurance.