Navigating 2026 Medicare Advantage Changes

The Annual Notice of Change (ANOC) that lands in your mailbox each September is the single most important Medicare document you'll receive all year — yet it's the one most people set aside until a January copay or a dropped drug catches them off guard. It tells you exactly how your Medicare Advantage or Part D plan will change come January 1, in both cost and coverage. Act on that letter during the fall open enrollment window and you stay in control of your coverage instead of watching it shift around you.

Here's the broker's quick checklist for the 2026 season.

Step 1: Read your Annual Notice of Change

The ANOC is a short summary of what's changing in your plan, not the full rulebook. Medicare Advantage plans (Part C) and standalone Part D drug plans are required to send it each fall, with CMS requiring it to reach current enrollees by September 30 so you can read it before coverage shifts on January 1 (Brevy Care).

Work through it against your own situation, not in the abstract, checking four things (The Medicare Site):

• Costs — your monthly premium, deductible, copays, and out-of-pocket maximum.

• Drugs — whether each medication you take is still covered and on which tier; a drug jumping a tier usually means a bigger copay.

• Your doctors — whether your physicians, specialists, and pharmacy stay in network.

• Extra benefits — dental, vision, hearing, or over-the-counter allowances that may be added, changed, or dropped.

One warning: the ANOC lists the plan's charges, but it does not list your own prescriptions or confirm your specific doctor. You have to check those yourself against the formulary and provider directory the notice links to.

Step 2: Compare the plan against your real costs

The next question is whether a different plan would serve you better. The standard comparison points I walk clients through every fall:

• Doctors and hospitals. Will your current providers stay in network next year — and does that matter more to you than any dollar figure?

• Out-of-pocket maximum. This caps what you spend in a year. A higher premium for a lower cap can still save money for someone with regular care.

• Drug costs, not just premiums. A plan's monthly premium is the smallest part of the bill for anyone on maintenance medication.

• Supplemental benefits. Dental, vision, hearing, and over-the-counter allowances vary widely and shift each year.

Run your medicines and pharmacy through the Medicare Plan Finder at medicare.gov/plan-compare, and you can call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227), which is staffed around the clock except major holidays — both are the official Medicare comparison tools described in the Brevy guide.

Step 3: Lock in your decision by December 7

Open Enrollment runs October 15 through December 7. In that window you can switch Medicare Advantage plans, move between Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage, or change Part D drug coverage — and your choice takes effect January 1, the same day your current plan's changes would (Brevy Care).

If the changes in your ANOC still fit your life — your doctors stay, your drugs stay covered, the costs make sense — you do nothing. There's no form to sign. Your plan renews automatically. If the plan no longer fits, use the window to switch. Protect yourself against the two most common mistakes: ignoring the letter entirely, and comparing only monthly premiums while a drug-tier change quietly adds to every refill. And if your plan is being discontinued, don't skip reading it — that's an invitation to pick a new plan before January 1.