Medicare Advantage

Medicare and Medicaid in Virginia: 18 Dual Special Needs Plans for 2027

RICHMOND — Virginians who have both Medicare and Medicaid will see 18 Dual Special Needs Plans (D-SNPs) available somewhere in the state for 2027, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Medicare Advantage Landscape Source Files for the coming plan year. Those 18 D-SNPs are part of a larger 148 Medicare Advantage plans statewide, and they sit alongside 19 Chronic Condition Special Needs Plans (C-SNPs) and 5 Institutional Special Needs Plans (I-SNPs). Because every Medicare Advantage plan is offered county by county, a plan listed statewide may or may not be sold where you live.

What a D-SNP is and who qualifies

A Dual Special Needs Plan is a type of Medicare Advantage plan built for people enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid. D-SNPs coordinate the two programs so that Medicare-covered services and the help Medicaid provides — which can include help with Medicare premiums and cost sharing, long-term services and supports, or a full package of Medicaid benefits — are managed together through one plan.

Eligibility depends on your Medicaid status, which is confirmed by Virginia's Medicaid agency, the Department of Medical Assistance Services (DMAS). "Full" dual-eligible individuals qualify for full Medicaid benefits in addition to Medicare. "Partial" dual-eligible individuals qualify for one of the Medicare Savings Programs (for example, the Qualified Medicare Beneficiary program), which helps pay Medicare costs but does not include the full Medicaid benefit package. Different D-SNPs are designed for different subsets of this population — some are built for full-benefit duals, some for QMB-only members, and some are more tightly integrated with Medicaid managed care. The plan names on this page reflect those distinctions, but what you actually qualify for depends on how DMAS has categorized your Medicaid eligibility.

If you are not sure of your category, DMAS or your Medicaid caseworker can confirm it, and Medicare.gov's Plan Finder will show only the D-SNPs you are eligible to join once your status is entered.

The statewide count and the carriers offering them

For 2027, Virginia's 18 D-SNPs come from five carriers. In alphabetical order:

• Aetna (CVS Health) — 1 plan
• Elevance Health (Anthem) — 4 plans
• Humana — 6 plans
• Sentara Medicare — 2 plans
• UnitedHealthcare — 5 plans

The full plan-by-plan list is rendered as a table elsewhere on this page, so we won't repeat every entry in prose. A few things are worth pointing out from the CMS data. Several plans carry a "renamed" note from CY2026 to CY2027: both of Elevance Health's Anthem Dual Advantage plans (HMO and PPO) are now "Anthem Dual Advantage Plus"; two Humana plans were rebranded from "Humana Gold Plus SNP-DE" to "Humana Dual QMB Only"; and two UnitedHealthcare plans were renamed to "UHC Dual Advantage VA-V1" and "UHC Dual Complete VA-YL." The naming change does not by itself tell you anything about the benefits — it just means that if your current card uses the old name, the plan is still there under a new label.

The 18 D-SNPs include HMO, HMO-POS and PPO structures, and all 18 include Part D drug coverage.

How often a dual-eligible person can change plans

Most people with Medicare can make changes during two windows: the Annual Enrollment Period (October 15 – December 7, 2026, for 2027 coverage) and the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period (January 1 – March 31, 2027). People who have both Medicare and Medicaid generally have additional opportunities through the Special Enrollment Period for dual-eligible and Low Income Subsidy individuals. Under current CMS rules, full-benefit dual-eligible members can typically use this SEP once per calendar quarter during the first three quarters of the year to make certain plan changes, in addition to the regular enrollment windows.

Rules on how and when the SEP can be used have been refined by CMS in recent years, so it is worth confirming the current version at Medicare.gov or by calling 1-800-MEDICARE before you act. A change made during the Annual Enrollment Period takes effect January 1, 2027; changes made under the dual SEP generally take effect the first of the following month.

Checking a plan in your county

The 18 D-SNP figure is statewide. County-level availability varies: in the CMS Landscape, some of these D-SNPs are listed in as many as 133 Virginia counties and independent cities, while others are offered in a much smaller footprint — for example, three Humana D-SNPs are listed in 13 counties. A plan on the statewide list may simply not be sold in your ZIP code.

To check what is actually available where you live:

1. Go to Medicare.gov and use the Plan Finder with your ZIP code. 2. Filter for Special Needs Plans, then Dual Eligible. 3. Compare specifics — premium, drug list, provider network, extra benefits, and star rating — using the plan's Summary of Benefits and Evidence of Coverage. Those documents, not any news article, are the authoritative source for what a plan covers and what it costs.

You can also call 1-800-MEDICARE (TTY 1-877-486-2048), available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Free help

Help with Medicare and Medicaid questions in Virginia is free from several sources. Medicare.gov offers the Plan Finder, plan documents and side-by-side comparisons. 1-800-MEDICARE can answer eligibility, enrollment and coverage questions and walk you through your choices. For Medicaid eligibility and status questions — including whether you are full-benefit or partial dual — the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services is the agency of record.

The CMS source material behind this article is the MA Landscape Source File for plan-level availability by county and the year-over-year comparison between the CY2026 and CY2027 Landscape files.