Part six of Healthcare in Retirement, and the first one where the calendar is doing the writing for me. The letters are in the mail. Some of you have already opened one. So this week we start with the mail, and we start with the two letters that look alike and are not.
The situation
A thick envelope from your plan arrives in September. It says things are changing for next year. Or it says something worse: the plan you are on will not be offered in 2027. One caller put it exactly the way most people feel: "I received a message that my plan is being discontinued and I'm not sure which plan it's referring to, but it says to call and get an appointment." Another, about her father: "So he didn't know his plan was going away in order for him to make plans for this year to choose a new plan."
He did not know because the two letters look the same. They are not the same. One means your plan is changing. The other means your plan is leaving. Each comes with its own deadline and its own set of rights, and the expensive mistake is handling the second one like the first.
Letter one: your plan is changing
This is the Annual Notice of Change. Every Medicare Advantage and drug plan has to send one, and Medicare's own consumer mailing guide says "By September 30, people will get a notice from their current plan outlining" next year's formulary, benefit, and premium changes. Medicare describes it simply: it "includes any changes in coverage, costs, and more that will be effective in January." The same page adds a line worth taking seriously: "If you don't get this important document, contact your plan."
If this is your letter, nothing special opens for you. Your window is the regular fall one, October 15 through December 7, and whatever you pick starts January 1. If you do nothing, you stay in the plan with its new prices. Tomorrow's article walks through that letter line by line, because it is longer than it needs to be and the important numbers are on page two.
Letter two: your plan is going away
This one is a non-renewal notice, and it runs on a different clock. Federal rules say a plan that is leaving must notify "each Medicare enrollee by mail at least 90 calendar days before the date on which the nonrenewal is effective." Ninety days before January 1 lands in the first days of October, so a plan that is ending is required to have mailed you notice by then. If you have not seen one and you think your plan is ending, call the plan. The plan also has to tell Medicare it is leaving by the first Monday in June, which means the company has known since spring. And it has to hand you a written description of other plan options, or call you, or both. The rule requires it.
Why do plans leave? Because they can. Medicare says it plainly: "Each year, insurance companies can decide to join or leave Medicare." It happened for 2026. KFF counted 3,373 Medicare Advantage plans available nationwide for 2026, a 9% decrease from 2025, with the average person choosing among 32 plans with drug coverage instead of 34. Medicare's own state fact sheet shows Arizona went from 149 Advantage plans in 2025 to 133 in 2026, while Nevada went the other direction, from 97 to 105. For 2027, the list is not public yet. Medicare says "Information for next year's plans will be available beginning in October." Until then, the only authority on your plan is your own letter.
What happens if you do nothing
This is the part that matters most, so I will quote Medicare's enrollment guide word for word: "You'll be enrolled in Original Medicare if you don't join another Medicare Advantage Plan before your current plan ends."
Read that again. Doing nothing is not staying put. It is being moved to Original Medicare on January 1 with no drug coverage, no out-of-pocket cap, and no Supplement. And the day you have no drug coverage, the penalty clock from part four starts running. That is the trap inside the second letter.
The rights that come with letter two
Two doors open when a plan leaves, and neither opens when a plan merely changes.
The first is a Special Enrollment Period. Medicare says that when your plan's contract is not renewed you can switch "between December 8 and the last day in February of the following year." So the fall window is not your last chance. You get extra runway into February.
The second is the one people miss, and it is the one that matters if you have been thinking about a Supplement. When an Advantage plan leaves Medicare or stops serving your area, you get a guaranteed-issue right: for certain Medigap plans, a company cannot turn you down or charge you more because of your health. Medicare's timing: apply from "60 days before your Medicare Advantage Plan coverage ends" to "no more than 63 days after your Medicare Advantage Plan coverage ends." We spent all of part five on how hard that door normally is to open. A plan leaving is one of the few times it swings open on its own.
Here is the catch, in Medicare's words: "You only have this right if you switch to Original Medicare (rather than join another Medicare Advantage Plan)." Hop to another Advantage plan and the right is gone. And keep the letter. Medicare notes that "You may need to include copies of these documents with your new Medigap application to prove you have the right to buy a new policy."
Two more letters you might get
The plan that is full. A plan can be alive, popular, and closed. Federal rules let a plan limit enrollment when "the number of MA eligible individuals who elect to enroll in that plan exceeds the limit", and Medicare only considers those limits when "the health and safety of beneficiaries is at risk," for example when the provider network cannot serve more people. If you are already in, you stay in. If you are trying to get in, the plan has to explain what happens when a seat opens. Wanting it does not get you in.
The plan that is being folded into another plan. The rules call this a crosswalk, "the movement of enrollees from one plan (or plan benefit package (PBP)) to another plan (or PBP) under a contract", and with limited exceptions, "crosswalks are prohibited between different contracts or different plan types (for example, HMO to PPO)." So if your letter says your plan is ending and invites you into a different kind of plan from the same company, that move is not automatic. Read it twice. It may be a non-renewal wearing friendly language, which means every right above applies to you.
If that is you, come to the workshop
If you opened one of these letters and you are confused, I would like you to come to the workshop on October 2. Bring the letter. Each room seats well over a hundred, and there will be plenty of other people in it, so you can sit in the back if that is where you are comfortable. Nobody is going to pressure you, scare you, or intimidate you. We genuinely want you to get your questions answered and the help you need, in a place where you feel at ease. Libraries have always been where people go to learn something, and we intend to keep it that way.
One more thing, and I want to be straight about it. As of now there is no replay. It is an in-person event, and we want the people who take the time to come to get what they came for. If you cannot make it, the advisors are a phone call away and the articles will keep coming.
What a Certified Medicare Planner® does differently
They read your letter before they read your plan. The first question is which letter it is, because that decides everything after it. If it is a non-renewal, they put two dates on the calendar the same day: the 63-day Medigap deadline, which is measured from the day coverage ends, and the last day of February. They ask the underwriting question out loud before you pick another Advantage plan, because that choice quietly forfeits the guaranteed-issue right. They know the list of 2027 plans is not public yet and do not pretend otherwise. And they make sure nobody in the family lands in Original Medicare on January 1 without a drug plan by accident. The advisors are at 602-281-3898.
Friday, October 2. Foothills Library, Glendale, 10:30 AM. Mustang Library, Scottsdale, 2:30 PM. No cost. Register at 123easymedicare.com/medicare-workshop or call (877) 220-1089.
Next in Healthcare in Retirement: the Annual Notice of Change, read like a spec sheet. The seven lines that matter, the two separate meters people confuse, and what your plan is allowed to change in the middle of the year without asking you.
This event is presented by 123EasyMedicare, a brand of American Retirement Advisors, an independent, private organization. It is not sponsored by, endorsed by, or affiliated with Medicare, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Social Security Administration, or any government agency. The libraries are not sponsors of, and are not affiliated with, this event. Educational only; not tax, legal, or insurance advice.
Continue the Series
Next: The ANOC letter, read like a spec sheet: the seven lines that matter →Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only. It is not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise representative of Medicare or the federal Medicare program. American Retirement Advisors is not a government agency. For official Medicare information, visit medicare.gov or call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).