Medicare Advantage

Seattle Medicare Advantage C-SNPs for 2027: how to tell if you qualify

King County has 59 Medicare Advantage plans for 2027. Compared with 2026, 27 plans are not coming back, 18 are new, and 31 continuing plans changed in some way you should check before December 7, 10 of them under a new name. This guide covers what those numbers mean for Seattle, not which plan to pick.

SEATTLE — As the Annual Enrollment Period for 2027 Medicare coverage runs from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7, 2026, people in Seattle living with a serious ongoing illness have a specific lane to look at: Chronic Condition Special Needs Plans, or C-SNPs. These are Medicare Advantage plans built around a qualifying diagnosis, and the lineup for King County — the county Seattle sits in — is shifting next year, with several new entrants joining the market.

For 2027, King County will have 7 C-SNPs available, offered by four carriers, according to the CMS Medicare Advantage Landscape Source File. That is a small slice of the county's 59 Medicare Advantage plans overall, but for the right person, a C-SNP can line up care, drug coverage and provider networks around the condition they live with every day.

What a C-SNP is, in plain terms

A Chronic Condition Special Needs Plan is a type of Medicare Advantage plan. Like other Advantage plans, it bundles your Part A (hospital), Part B (medical) and — in every C-SNP offered in King County for 2027 — Part D (prescription drug) coverage into one plan from a private insurer approved by Medicare.

What makes a C-SNP different is who it is for. CMS limits enrollment to people with a specific chronic condition the plan is designed around, such as diabetes, heart conditions, chronic lung disorders or end-stage renal disease. Because the membership shares a diagnosis, the plan can tailor its drug list, care management, provider network and extra benefits around that condition.

C-SNPs sit alongside two other kinds of Special Needs Plans in the county: Dual-eligible SNPs (D-SNPs) for people with both Medicare and Medicaid, and Institutional SNPs (I-SNPs) for people living in a nursing facility. For 2027, King County also has 18 D-SNPs and 4 I-SNPs.

The 7 C-SNPs offered in King County for 2027

Listed alphabetically by carrier, exactly as CMS lists them. The full plan table below shows plan type and drug coverage status for each.

• Aetna (CVS Health) — Aetna Medicare Chronic Care (HMO C-SNP) — new for 2027
• Devoted Health — DEVOTED C-SNP ENHANCED 003 WA (HMO C-SNP) — new for 2027
• Devoted Health — DEVOTED C-SNP GIVEBACK EXTRAS 004 WA (HMO C-SNP) — new for 2027
• Devoted Health — DEVOTED C-SNP PLUS 005 WA (HMO C-SNP) — new for 2027
• Humana — Humana Gold Plus - Diabetes and Heart (HMO C-SNP)
• UnitedHealthcare — UHC Complete Care Support WA-1A (HMO-POS C-SNP) — new for 2027
• UnitedHealthcare — UHC Complete Care Support WA-3A (HMO-POS C-SNP) — new for 2027

Six of these seven C-SNPs are new to King County for 2027. The specific condition each plan serves — and the details of its coverage — are set by the plan itself. Only the Humana plan name states a condition (diabetes and heart). For the others, you will need to check Medicare's Plan Finder or the plan's own materials to see which chronic condition qualifies you to join.

Enrollment hinges on a provider-confirmed diagnosis

A C-SNP is not open enrollment. To join, you must have the qualifying chronic condition the plan is built for, and your provider has to confirm the diagnosis to the plan. Plans typically send a short verification form your doctor's office fills out and returns. If the condition cannot be verified, the enrollment is not completed.

That is a different standard from a general Medicare Advantage plan, where any Medicare-eligible person in the service area can usually enroll during the right window.

A Special Enrollment Period for people with a qualifying condition

Most Medicare changes happen in set windows — the Annual Enrollment Period (Oct. 15 – Dec. 7) and the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period (Jan. 1 – March 31). C-SNPs come with an added option: people who are newly diagnosed with, or already have, a qualifying chronic condition get a Special Enrollment Period to join a C-SNP that serves that condition. This SEP generally lets you make the move once, outside the standard windows, when the diagnosis is confirmed.

If you later no longer meet the plan's condition criteria, Medicare gives you a grace period to switch to another plan.

What is changing in King County for 2027

Across all Medicare Advantage plans in King County, 27 plans are not returning for 2027, 18 are new, and 10 have been renamed. If you are already in a plan, the Annual Notice of Change (ANOC) your insurer mailed in September lays out exactly what is changing — premium, drug list, provider network, out-of-pocket limits, extra benefits. If you do nothing and your plan is offered again, you stay enrolled automatically.

Program-wide, a few 2027 figures from CMS are already set and worth knowing as you compare drug coverage inside any Medicare Advantage plan, C-SNP or otherwise:

• Part D out-of-pocket cap: $2,400 in 2027 (up from $2,100 in 2026).
• Part D maximum deductible: $700 in 2027 (up from $615 in 2026).
• Part D national base beneficiary premium: $41.33 for 2027 (this is a formula input, not what any plan charges).

The 2027 Part B standard premium and deductible, and the 2027 IRMAA income brackets, have not yet been announced; CMS typically publishes them in November.

How to compare before you commit

Because every C-SNP builds its drug formulary and provider network around a specific condition, two plans can look similar on paper and work very differently for the person actually using them. A few things worth checking plan by plan:

• Is your diagnosis one the plan covers?
• Are your specialists and preferred hospital in the network?
• Are your prescriptions on the drug list, and at what tier?
• Does the plan require referrals or prior authorization for the specialists you see most?

The Medicare Plan Finder at medicare.gov lets you plug in your ZIP code, your drugs and your providers to see how each plan handles them.