Medicare requires a plan that will not return for the next coverage year to tell its members before the annual shopping season gets underway. Medicare.gov’s guidance on plan non-renewal says that notice goes out in October, and it tells a member plainly to find a new plan for coverage starting the following January. Nothing in the notice picks that replacement on its own.
What an October notice doesn’t include: The letter says a plan is leaving and to find a new one, not which alternative fits the same drugs and doctors. The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit runs that comparison. Compare the replacement plans on cost and doctors →
The October Notice
Medicare’s page on the Plan Non-Renewal Notice confirms the mailing arrives in October and instructs a member to look for a new plan for coverage the following year. That single instruction is the entire content of the mandate: the page does not describe a specific alternative, a recommended plan, or a deadline beyond the enrollment windows that already apply to everyone else on Medicare. Because the guidance names only the month, the letter could land as early as the first week of October, well before the fall shopping window opens, or as late as the final days of the month, cutting directly into the time a member has to act on it.
A Different Letter Than the One Continuing Plans Send
Plans that intend to keep operating send a different document altogether: an Annual Notice of Change mailed every September describing what is changing about cost and coverage for members who are staying put. Medicare’s guidance says that notice covers changes in coverage, costs and more that take effect in January, and tells a member who never receives one to contact the plan directly. A non-renewal notice serves the opposite purpose a month later, telling a member there is no plan to stay in at all, which is why Medicare’s own guidance treats the two mailings as separate documents on separate schedules rather than two versions of the same letter aimed at two different outcomes.
Landing Inside an Enrollment Period Already Open
The October notice arrives close to when Medicare’s general enrollment period begins, which runs from October 15 through December 7 every year and lets any Medicare Advantage or Part D enrollee join, drop or switch plans for coverage starting January 1. A member whose plan is not renewing does not get a separate calendar carved out for that first stretch; the notice simply confirms, inside a window that is opening for every other Medicare enrollee too, that this particular decision is not optional.
The Second Window, if the First One Is Missed
Anyone who does not choose a new plan during that fall period gets a second chance built specifically around non-renewal. Medicare’s Special Enrollment Periods page sets that window at December 8 through the last day of February, letting a member join a different Medicare Advantage plan or fall back to Original Medicare. That same page distinguishes this scenario from two others: a window running from one month before to two months after Medicare itself ends a plan’s contract, and a separate window running from two months before to one month after a plan exits the program voluntarily mid-year. Someone who lets both the fall period and the December-through-February window pass is enrolled in Original Medicare automatically, with no guarantee that a drug plan comes along with it, since Original Medicare carries no drug benefit of its own.
Weighing a Medigap Policy Along the Way
A member who decides to move to Original Medicare rather than pick another Medicare Advantage plan can also look at buying a Medigap policy for the costs Original Medicare does not cover. Medicare’s guide to buying a Medigap policy explains that Medigap plans are standardized and identified by letter, such as Plan G or Plan K, so the same letter buys the same benefits no matter which company sells it, and that most people get a six-month window right after Part B starts to buy one without medical underwriting. A non-renewal notice does not by itself reopen that six-month window, so whether a Medigap purchase is protected or medically underwritten depends on when Part B originally started, a separate date from anything printed on the October letter.
What “Finding a New Plan” Actually Means
Medicare’s guidance on the fall enrollment period spells out what the instruction to find a new plan actually covers: joining a different Medicare Advantage plan, adding or dropping drug coverage, or moving to Original Medicare and separately picking up a stand-alone Part D plan, with a Medigap policy worth pricing out at the same time for costs Original Medicare leaves uncovered. None of those choices gets made by the October notice itself; the letter only starts the clock that makes one of them necessary, leaving the comparison work for whoever opens the envelope. The notice, the fall enrollment period and the December-through-February window together form one continuous process triggered by a single piece of mail, even though each stage is described on a separate Medicare.gov page with its own dates and its own rules.
A Notice Naming an Exit, Not a Replacement
An October notice that a Medicare Advantage plan is leaving tells a member the coverage is ending and that a new plan has to be found, but it never ranks the alternatives against what the current plan actually covered. A member who sets the letter aside without comparing options risks landing on a replacement, or on Original Medicare by default, that costs more or drops a needed drug or doctor.
The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit pairs the Open Enrollment calendar with a provider call script, so the same October notice that starts the clock can also start a plan-by-plan comparison.
Compare the replacement options before the calendar runs out in The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor ahead of publication.
