Most people who open a Medicare Advantage cancellation letter start hunting for a replacement plan immediately. Buried in that same moment, though, is a second decision that can shape a retiree’s health costs for the rest of their life: whether to pick another Medicare Advantage plan or go back to Original Medicare. Choosing Original Medicare…

When a Medicare Advantage plan pulls out of a member’s county, leaves Medicare altogether, or stops covering the place where that member lives, the member does not have to wait for the coverage to actually end before shopping for a replacement. Federal rules let a person apply for a Medigap policy as early as 60…

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has a hard date circled on its calendar: November 30, 2026. By then, the agency must publish the negotiated prices it reaches with drug companies over 15 more high-cost medications, the third round of price negotiations created by the Inflation Reduction Act. For the first time, the list…

Millions of people enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan carry a prepaid debit card meant to cover groceries, over-the-counter items, or other extra benefits the plan advertised at enrollment. Starting with the 2027 plan year, that card will work differently at the register: a federal rule finalized this spring requires it to check, in real…

Anyone who has already spotted a headline promising next year’s Medicare Part B premium can relax about memorizing the number, because no such figure exists yet — not from the agency that sets it, not officially. As of this week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has not published a 2027 Part B premium,…

Naples Comprehensive Health, the two-hospital, 713-bed system that anchors healthcare in Collier County, is cutting ties with two of the region’s largest Medicare Advantage carriers. Cigna’s Healthspring Medicare Advantage plans and Centene’s Wellcare Medicare Advantage plans are set to fall out of network at every NCH hospital, clinic, and physician office once the new year…

A data-sharing arrangement that quietly decides who keeps a valuable Medicare subsidy, and who loses it, is about to restart. Starting September 16, 2026, the Social Security Administration will compare civil service pension records from the Office of Personnel Management against its own Medicare files to check who is correctly receiving Extra Help with prescription…

Starting July 1, 2026, Medicare began covering three specific weight-loss and metabolic drugs through a new program called Medicare GLP-1 Bridge, priced at a single flat monthly amount no matter what a beneficiary earns. It is not a blanket expansion of GLP-1 coverage to every Medicare enrollee who wants a prescription — it is a…

Medicare’s second round of drug price negotiations is now locked in, and the timeline is easy to blur with a newer, separate round that just started. The federal government finished bargaining with manufacturers over 15 widely prescribed drugs months ago, and those negotiated prices take effect for Medicare Part D and Part B plans on…

Every Medicare Advantage and Part D enrollee should expect a notice in the mail this month that quietly does more to shape next year’s coverage than almost anything else Medicare sends out. It’s the Annual Notice of Change, and it lands just ahead of the one Medicare deadline that actually forces a decision: whether to…