Starting Jan. 1, 2027, Vanderbilt Health will no longer be in the Aetna Medicare Advantage network. Vanderbilt posted the change on its Medicare Advantage information page, and it says the change affects “all Aetna Medicare Advantage members, including both individual and group plans.”
The Aetna plans are not ending. What ends is the contract that lets Aetna members see Vanderbilt doctors and use Vanderbilt facilities at in-network prices. For a patient with a heart specialist or a cancer team at Vanderbilt, that is close to the same thing as losing the plan.
Who is in and who is out
The change covers all Vanderbilt Health locations and affiliated entities. One carve-out stands: Vanderbilt says “Aetna Medicare Advantage plans will continue to cover the Vanderbilt Clarksville Hospital facility in 2027,” and Clarksville Physician Services are also left out of the network exit. A member who uses only the Clarksville hospital is in a different position from one who drives to Nashville for specialty care.
Group plans are included, which matters for retirees covered through a former employer or union. Those members are in the same position as people who bought a plan on their own, with the same Jan. 1 date.
What Vanderbilt tells members to do
Vanderbilt’s advice is brief. Patients who want to keep getting care there without interruptions should “review your Medicare coverage options during Open Enrollment (Oct. 15 – Dec. 7)” and consider a plan that includes Vanderbilt Health in its network. The health system lists (855) 429-2989 for general questions about the change and (615) 322-5000 as its main line. Members can also request medical records online or by phone.
Open Enrollment is Medicare’s yearly window for changing plans. Medicare’s joining-a-plan page lists it as October 15 through December 7, with coverage starting on Jan. 1 as long as the new plan gets the request by Dec. 7. That puts the real deadline for a clean handoff a few weeks before the year ends.
Testing a replacement plan against a specific set of doctors is the hard part of this switch. The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit includes a provider call script and a cost calculator spreadsheet that compares plans on cost, drugs and doctors.
Test a new plan against Vanderbilt doctors with a call script →
Switching plans versus staying put
Staying in the Aetna plan is a real option, and for some members it will be the right one. A person who sees a Vanderbilt doctor once a year for a minor issue may decide the premium and drug coverage in the Aetna plan are worth more than a network that includes Vanderbilt. The point is to make that call on purpose, with the numbers, before Dec. 7.
Members who do switch have two broad paths. One is a different Medicare Advantage plan whose network lists Vanderbilt. The other is Original Medicare, which is not an Advantage plan and usually comes with a separate drug plan. Medicare warns that someone who gives up drug coverage “may have to pay a Part D late enrollment penalty” if they join a drug plan later. The warning appears on Medicare’s page about special enrollment periods.
The window after January 1
Medicare gives people already in an Advantage plan one more chance to change. Its joining page lists a Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period that runs January 1 through March 31, and coverage begins the first of the month after the plan gets the request. A member who stays with Aetna in January and finds Vanderbilt out of network can use that window to leave. The cost is a few months of higher bills or a different doctor in the meantime.
That window is not a replacement for acting before Dec. 7, since it leaves a gap in the very weeks when a patient may need appointments. The same special enrollment page describes a separate window for people whose plan is not renewed, from December 8 to the last day of February, but that rule is for plans that leave Medicare, which is a different case from a hospital leaving a network.
Keeping Vanderbilt doctors in network
The no-cost route starts with Medicare’s Plan Finder, where plans for a home ZIP code can be compared by cost and coverage. Before searching, write down the name of every Vanderbilt doctor and clinic the household uses, plus every prescription and its dose. Include specialists, therapy and any scheduled surgery, since those drive the year’s bills.
Then call the candidate plan and the doctor’s office, and ask the same question of both: is this doctor in the plan’s 2027 network, and does the plan cover the services planned for next year? Vanderbilt lists (855) 429-2989 and (615) 322-5000 for questions about the change. Ask for the answer by plan name, not by insurer, since one company can sell several plans with different networks.
Vanderbilt’s notice on the Aetna change gives Open Enrollment as the time to act and Oct. 15 to Dec. 7 as the dates, and Medicare’s page sets Dec. 7 as the day the new plan must have the request for a Jan. 1 start.
For the weeks between now and Dec. 7, The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit pairs a prescription-by-plan comparison with the Open Enrollment calendar in its 42-page decision kit.
Get the Open Enrollment calendar and drug comparison for Aetna members →
This piece was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
