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DEEP DIVE 📚

Earlier this week, CMS released the Landscape file for the 2027 plan year for Medicare Advantage and Part D.

The Landscape file contains information on every Medicare Advantage and Part D plan for 2027, including Contract, Plan, and Segment IDs, State and County, Organization and Marketing names, plan type, SNP type, Part C and Part D premiums, and drug benefit information. New this year, it also flags plans with a CMS-accepted enrollment capacity limit.

This file tells us what the Medicare Advantage market will look like in 2027. When combined with prior Landscape files we can compare 2027 to prior years.

Today we'll look at the change in distinct Contract and Plan combinations between the 2027, 2026, and 2025 files by:

→ Plan Type (HMO, PPO, SNP, etc.)
→ Parent Organization
→ State
→ Enrollment Caps (new this year)

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First, the number of available plans for Non-Special Needs Plans ("Non-SNPs"):

→ HMO plans decrease 1%🔻(-22) from 2026 to 2027, and 9%🔻(-177) from 2025
→ PPO plans decrease 10%🔻(-147) from 2026 to 2027, and 21%🔻(-337) from 2025
→ PFFS plans nearly halve, from 20 to 11

PPOs have now lost one in five plans in two years.

For Special Needs Plans ("SNPs"), the trend splits:

→ C-SNP plans increase 36% 🚀 (+196) from 2026 to 2027, and nearly double from 2025 (+98%, from 376 to 744)
→ D-SNP plans decrease 7%🔻(-70) from 2026 to 2027, but remain up 5% (+46) from 2025
→ I-SNP plans increase 5% 🚀 (+8) from 2026 to 2027, roughly flat versus 2025

D-SNPs grew 13% last year. The 2027 decline lines up with a new CMS rule limiting carriers to one D-SNP for full-benefit dual eligibles in service areas where they also hold a Medicaid managed care contract.

The C-SNP growth is concentrated in PPOs: PPO C-SNPs go from 96 to 174 in one year.

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Among the top 10 Medicare Advantage parent organizations by individual MA enrollment as of September 2026:

→ MA plans (without Part D) decrease 8%🔻(-22) in 2027, and 14%🔻(-39) from 2025
→ MAPD plans decrease 3%🔻(-60) in 2027, and 10%🔻(-227) from 2025
→ SNP plans increase 11% 🚀 (+136) in 2027, and 38% 🚀 (+386) from 2025

Devoted Health is the outlier:
→ It adds 162 MAPD plans and 147 SNPs in 2027.
→ Its C-SNP count goes from 4 in 2025, to 122 in 2026, to 255 in 2027.
→ Devoted alone accounts for 68% of the national C-SNP increase this year.
→ Excluding Devoted, the rest of the top 10 cut 222 MAPD plans in 2027.

Other moves:
→ Health Care Service Corporation cuts MAPD plans from 231 in 2025 to 100 in 2027.
→ Centene cuts from 191 to 99 over the same period.
→ CVS Health's C-SNPs go from 6 in 2025 to 73 in 2027.
→ Elevance cuts D-SNPs from 103 to 72 in 2027.
→ Outside the top 10, all other carriers combined cut 80 MAPD plans (-10%) and hold SNPs flat.

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The overall number of Medicare Advantage plans (MA, MAPD, and SNP) decreases 1%🔻(-44) nationally from 2026 to 2027, and 2%🔻(-111) from 2025.

note: Plans offered in multiple states are counted in each state, so state changes won't sum to the national total.

→ Tennessee (+17), Alabama, Louisiana, and Arizona (+14 each) see the largest increases in 2027
→ Florida (-48), Ohio (-25), Illinois (-20), and Maryland (-17) see the largest decreases
→ Over two years, Minnesota has lost the most plans (-40, from 89 to 49), followed by Florida (-31), Illinois, and Colorado (-28 each)
→ Texas (+33) and Missouri (+31) have gained the most since 2025

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For the first time, the Landscape file shows whether CMS accepted an enrollment capacity limit for a plan, and what that limit is.

60 MA plans have one for 2027. That's about 1% of all MA plans.

→ The caps sit with 15 regional and provider-sponsored carriers across 11 states
→ None of the national carriers capped a plan
→ 51 are MAPD plans, 5 are SNPs, and 4 are MA-only

Carriers took two different approaches.

Some capped everything. In the counties where they have caps, these carriers have no uncapped plans at all:

→ Network Health (WI): all 10 plans capped, 146K total
→ Martin's Point (ME): all 9 plans capped, 66K total
→ BCBS Massachusetts: all 7 plans capped, 67K total
→ BCBS Nebraska: all 3 plans capped, 20K total

Others capped selectively and kept uncapped plans of the same type in the same counties:

→ Henry Ford Health / HAP (MI): 2 of 14 plans capped
→ CuraCor / Blue Medicare (NC): 2 of 7 plans capped
→ LifeBridge Health (MD): 2 of 5
→ CareFirst (MD): 1 of 5

CuraCor's capped plans are 99% full today, but CuraCor has uncapped plans in every one of those counties.

Of the 345K members in capped plans today, 42% have an uncapped plan of the same type from the same carrier in their county.

That's all for now. Keep following us as we dig further into the Crosswalk and Landscape files heading into AEP 2027.

If you’re ready, here are some ways we can help you: