One letter Medicare Advantage members have been entitled to receive partway through the year, the reminder about supplemental benefits they have not used, is being dropped. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says it is rescinding the requirement for plans to send mid-year notices about unused supplemental benefits, a change that sits in the Contract Year 2027 Medicare Advantage and Part D final rule.
For households, the notice was one of the few prompts that put the value of a plan’s extras, such as dental, vision or hearing coverage, in front of a member before the year ran out. Without it, tracking those benefits falls to the member.
The rescission in CMS’s own words
The CMS fact sheet, published April 2, 2026, lists the change among measures for reducing regulatory burden and costs in accordance with Executive Order 14192. Its entry reads that CMS is "rescinding the requirement for MA plans to send mid-year notices about unused supplemental benefits." The fact sheet attributes the decision to no named official and does not say how many members were receiving the notice.
The framing is cost to plans, not benefit to members. CMS presents the change as a burden reduction, and the fact sheet carries no estimate of savings, no count of affected plans and no dollar figure of any kind.
What the notice was for
The mid-year notice gave members a checkpoint on benefits that plans include beyond Original Medicare. Supplemental benefits differ by plan in what they cover and how much they allow. A member who never opened the dental allowance, or let an over-the-counter balance sit untouched, could see that in the letter while time remained to use it.
With the requirement gone, the plan may still send reminders voluntarily; the fact sheet does not forbid them. It simply stops obliging every plan to do so, which means the amount of reminder a member receives can differ from one insurer to the next.
Other contract year 2027 changes in the same rule
The rescission is one line in a larger rule. The fact sheet also describes a requirement that Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill debit cards be electronically linked to plan-covered items through a real-time check at the point of sale, a requirement that plans publicly post their SSBCI eligibility criteria, and a bar on cannabis products that are illegal under state or federal law.
On the Star Ratings side, CMS removed 11 administrative process measures and added a Part C Depression Screening and Follow-Up measure that takes effect with the 2027 measurement year and the 2029 Star Ratings. It also discontinued the Excellent Health Outcomes for All reward and removed health equity requirements from MA utilization management committees. The rule codified Inflation Reduction Act Part D provisions as well, including the elimination of the coverage gap phase and a reduced annual out-of-pocket threshold.
Where the rescission lands on the 2027 calendar
The timing is awkward for members. CMS’s September 28 release on 2027 plans projects the average monthly Medicare Advantage premium at $12.00, down from $14.37 in 2026, with enrollment estimated at 34 million, about 47.4% of Medicare. It counts roughly 5,532 plans and says eight in ten members can remain in their current plan with the same or a lower premium.
A lower average premium says little about whether a given plan’s supplemental benefits were used. Open Enrollment runs from October 15 to December 7, 2026, and members weighing a switch will be doing it without the mid-year signal that previously flagged unspent benefits during the middle of the plan year. The members who will notice the gap most are those who kept a plan mainly for a benefit and never checked its use.
Part D numbers moved at the same time. The same release puts the average standalone prescription drug plan premium at $36 for 2027, up from $35.09, while the average Part D premium inside Medicare Advantage plans falls from $11.32 to $7.
Households with low incomes face a separate set of 2027 numbers. Medicare’s Extra Help page lists 2027 copays of up to $5.80 per generic and $14.40 per brand-name drug, a $0 plan premium and deductible, and $0 per covered drug once total drug costs reach $2,400. Those figures belong to the Part D low-income subsidy, not to the supplemental benefits the rescinded notice covered, but they sit in the same decision window.
What the sources do and do not settle
The CMS fact sheet settles the rescission and the contract year it belongs to. It does not settle when plans must stop sending the letter, whether any plan will keep doing so, or whether members will be pointed to another way of seeing benefit use. Those operational points are matters for each plan’s materials, and the fact sheet is the primary document for the federal requirement itself.
Keeping a benefit calendar when the plan stops prompting
With the mid-year unused-benefit notice rescinded, the check on whether a Medicare Advantage plan’s extras were used falls to the member. The practical job is setting dates for that review and preparing questions for the plan before the December 7 close of Open Enrollment.
The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit puts the Open Enrollment calendar alongside a provider call script, so questions and deadlines sit in one place.
Look up the Open Enrollment dates and a call script for plan questions →
This report was prepared with AI assistance and checked line by line against the CMS fact sheet and release it cites.
