Your Medicare Advantage plan is leaving your county. Here's what to do, and by when

If your Medicare Advantage plan is leaving Medicare or dropping your area for 2027, your plan should have sent you a Plan Non-Renewal Notice. Medicare.gov says plans send it in October. You keep Medicare either way. What you get in 2027 depends on what you choose and when.

How many people this hits

KFF counted 193 counties where no Medicare Advantage plan with drug coverage will be open to general enrollment in 2027, up from 123 in 2026. About 638,000 people with Medicare live in those counties, 1% of everyone on Medicare, up from 399,000 in 2026.

Those counties are in 16 states: Alaska, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah and Vermont, plus U.S. territories other than Puerto Rico. No county in Alaska has one, and about 110,000 people with Medicare live there. In six counties, a plan without drug coverage is still offered. In the other 187, KFF found no Medicare Advantage plan of any kind for general enrollment. Some of those counties still have cost plans or special needs plans, which only certain people can join.

Insurers also left counties where other plans remain. KFF’s count of county exits and entries by insurer for 2027:

Molina Healthcare and Group 1001, which sells as Clear Spring Health, are leaving the Medicare Advantage drug plan market entirely, though KFF says Molina still offers special needs plans in many counties.

Your options, in order of the calendar

1. Pick a new plan by Dec 7. Open enrollment runs through Dec 7, 2026. A plan you join by then starts Jan 1, 2027, the day the non-renewal takes effect, so there is no gap.

2. Use the special enrollment period, Dec 8 to Feb 28. If your plan or contract is not renewed, Medicare.gov says you can switch between Dec 8 and the last day of February. In 2027 that is Feb 28. CMS’s enrollment guidance sets the start dates. A request made Dec 8 to Dec 31 starts Jan 1. A request made in January starts Feb 1, and one made in February starts March 1. CMS says this period also covers a plan that stops serving your area, which it calls a service area reduction.

3. Do nothing, and you move to Original Medicare. Medicare.gov says you’ll be enrolled in Original Medicare if you don’t join another Medicare Advantage plan before your current plan ends. If you go back to Original Medicare and want drug coverage, you join a separate Medicare drug plan.

4. Original Medicare plus a Medigap policy. A Medigap policy helps pay costs that Original Medicare doesn’t cover. Outside your Medigap open enrollment period, an insurer can deny you a policy based on your health, Medicare’s Medigap guide says. A plan that is leaving Medicare or stops giving care in your area is one of the exceptions. It gives you guaranteed issue rights, which means an insurer must sell you a Medigap policy, must cover your pre-existing conditions, and can’t charge you more because of past or present health problems.

The guide lists Medigap Plans A, B, C, D, F and G for this case. Plans C and F are not sold to people new to Medicare on or after Jan 1, 2020. Apply no more than 63 days after your Medicare Advantage coverage ends. The Medigap policy can’t start until that coverage ends. You only have this right if you switch to Original Medicare instead of joining another Medicare Advantage plan. In a December 2024 Q&A with state insurance regulators, CMS added that someone whose plan was non-renewed, including a service area reduction, can join another Medicare Advantage plan for Jan 1 and still switch to Original Medicare and Medigap with these rights by the end of February. Your state may give you more rights than federal law does.

Keep the non-renewal notice, other letters from your plan and the postmarked envelopes they came in. The Medigap guide says you may need copies with your Medigap application to show you qualify.

Free help

Every state has a State Health Insurance Assistance Program, or SHIP, that offers free one-on-one Medicare counseling. Find yours at shiphelp.org. You can also call 1-800-MEDICARE.

What’s next

Open enrollment ends Dec 7, 2026. The special enrollment period for non-renewed plans runs Dec 8, 2026 through Feb 28, 2027. For the bigger picture on who is joining Medicare Advantage, see Medicare Advantage passes 36 million members and our AEP 2027 scorecard.

This story is general information from public sources. It is not insurance or enrollment advice, and we don’t recommend any plan or insurer. For help with your own coverage, call 1-800-MEDICARE or your local SHIP.