Medicare Advantage

Your Virginia Beach Medicare checklist: what to review before Dec. 7 for 2027 coverage

Virginia Beach city has 70 Medicare Advantage plans for 2027. Compared with 2026, 3 plans are not coming back, 6 are new, and 45 continuing plans changed in some way you should check before December 7, 16 of them under a new name. This guide covers what those numbers mean for Virginia Beach, not which plan to pick.

Virginia Beach, Va. — Fall 2026. The Medicare Annual Enrollment Period is open through Dec. 7, 2026, and any change you make now takes effect Jan. 1, 2027. If you do nothing, your current plan simply renews next year — as long as it is still offered — with whatever changes your insurer spelled out in your Annual Notice of Change. That is why a short, honest review every fall is worth the time.

Here is a Virginia Beach-focused checklist to walk through before the deadline.

Step 1: Read the Annual Notice of Change

Your Medicare Advantage or Part D plan sent an ANOC by late September. It is a short document that compares this year to next year — premium, deductible, copays, drug tier changes, and any network changes. Keep it next to your Evidence of Coverage (the longer rulebook) while you review.

If you cannot find yours, call the number on your member ID card and ask them to resend it, or download it from your plan's member site.

Step 2: Confirm your doctors and Virginia Beach hospitals are in-network for 2027

Networks can shift from one plan year to the next. Before Dec. 7, check that:

• Your primary care doctor is still in-network for 2027.
• Any specialists you see regularly are listed.
• The hospital system you prefer in the Virginia Beach–Hampton Roads area — whether that is Sentara, a Chesapeake Regional facility or a Riverside site — is contracted with the plan you are considering.

Use the plan's online provider directory for the 2027 plan year (not the current year), and when in doubt, call the provider's billing office and ask which plans they will accept starting Jan. 1, 2027.

Step 3: Check every prescription against the 2027 drug list

Plan formularies (drug lists) are rebuilt each year. For each medication you take:

• Confirm it is still covered in 2027.
• Note the tier (tier changes can move a drug to a different copay level).
• Check whether there is a new prior authorization or step therapy requirement.
• Make sure your preferred Virginia Beach pharmacy is still a preferred or standard in-network pharmacy.

A couple of Part D changes to know for 2027: the out-of-pocket cap on covered Part D drugs rises to $2,400 (up from $2,100 in 2026), and the maximum Part D deductible is $700 (up from $615 in 2026). The optional Medicare Prescription Payment Plan, which spreads drug costs across the calendar year, is still available if a large bill in one month would be hard to manage.

Step 4: Know what's on the menu locally

Plan availability in Medicare is set at the county level. Virginia Beach is in Virginia Beach city, where 67 Medicare Advantage plans from 6 carriers are offered for 2026 — including HMO, HMO-POS, PPO and PFFS plans, 27 Special Needs Plans, and all 67 including drug coverage. The carriers in this market are:

• Aetna (CVS Health)
• Elevance Health (Anthem)
• Humana
• Lifeworks Advantage
• Sentara Medicare
• UnitedHealthcare

The full table below lists every 2026 plan offered in Virginia Beach city by carrier. CMS typically posts the full 2027 lineup on the Medicare Plan Finder at medicare.gov at the start of the enrollment window; that is the authoritative place to compare 2027 options side-by-side.

If you qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid, or you have a condition like diabetes or chronic kidney disease, pay particular attention to the Special Needs Plans (SNPs) — several carriers above offer D-SNPs, C-SNPs or I-SNPs in Virginia Beach city.

Step 5: Decide, then act before Dec. 7

Once you have compared your current plan's 2027 version with one or two alternatives, you have a few paths:

• Keep your plan. Do nothing. It renews Jan. 1, 2027, with the ANOC changes.
• Switch Medicare Advantage plans, change Part D plans, or move between Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage. All of these are done during AEP, through Dec. 7.
• If you pick an Advantage plan and change your mind, the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period (Jan. 1 – Mar. 31, 2027) gives you one chance to switch to a different Advantage plan or go back to Original Medicare.

A note on Part B and IRMAA: the 2027 Part B standard premium and deductible and the 2027 IRMAA income brackets had not been announced as of early fall 2026. CMS normally releases those figures in November. Watch medicare.gov for the official numbers rather than relying on estimates.