You have until December 7 to keep your Medicare Advantage plan or switch to a different one for 2027. The plan you have, and every plan you could choose instead, already spells out what it pays for a specialist visit, an MRI, a new prescription, and the drugs you take now. That information sits in a few hundred pages of documents almost no one reads, which is why "which plan should I pick?" is so hard to get an honest answer to.
Call the number on your card and you reach a call center the plan pays for. Call a broker and you reach someone who can earn up to $694 when you enroll in a plan, and nothing when you decide to stay where you are. Neither is a villain, and plenty of brokers do genuinely useful work. The point is simpler: if the only people offering to help you choose are paid to move you, it is worth knowing what your own documents say before you talk to any of them.
The number that matters is yours
Premium and deductible are the headline numbers, and they are the ones plans compete on in their advertising. On their own they are close to useless for predicting what you will spend. A plan with a lower premium can cost you far more over a year if you see two specialists, take a brand-name drug, and have a couple of scans, because the copays and coinsurance on the care you use add up to more than the premium you saved. The only cost that tells you anything is the total for the care you personally expect to need next year, priced against each plan you are considering.
We saw this play out with an early user who was choosing between a lower-premium plan and a higher-premium one. Once she counted the specialist visits she'd had this year and was likely to have again, the higher-premium plan turned out to be the cheaper one for her. The premium had been pointing her the wrong way.
How to figure out what next year would cost you
Start by writing down what you used this year. The medications you take and how often you refill them, the specialists you see and roughly how many visits, the tests and procedures you had or expect, and any planned surgery or therapy. This list is the input that turns a pile of plan documents into a real number.
Then, for each plan, you are reading three documents. The Summary of Benefits gives the copays and coinsurance for common services. The Evidence of Coverage is the long one, with the rules, the prior-authorization requirements, and the exceptions. The formulary is the drug list, which tells you whether your medications are covered, what tier they sit on, and what you will pay for them. Running your personal list against those three documents, for every plan available where you live, is what produces an honest comparison. It is also a genuinely tedious afternoon, which is why most people skip it and pick on premium alone.
The questions that get a straight answer
Before you enroll, ask each plan's documents:
For the drugs I take, what tier are they on and what will I pay per fill?
What is my copay to see the specialists I use, and does a visit need prior approval?
What would an MRI or CT scan cost me under this plan, and where can I have it done?
What is the most I could pay out of pocket in a year under this plan?
And year-round, before any appointment, the question worth asking is what your plan pays for this visit or test, and whether it needs approval first. Ask these against the plan's own documents, not against a general description of how Medicare works. The documents are specific to your plan and your county, and they are the only thing that binds the plan.
Don't let a ranked list decide for you
Many "find a plan" tools rank their results, and the ranking is rarely neutral. Some are sorted to favor plans that pay the site a referral fee, which makes the decision for you and presents it as a recommendation. You are allowed to see every plan available in your county, unranked, and sort it yourself by the thing you care about, whether that is total expected cost, your drug coverage, or keeping your current doctors. December 7 is the deadline to switch for 2027, so there is time to do this properly, as long as you don't leave it to the first week of December.
Where Neatly fits
Neatly reads those documents for you. You tell it the medications you take and how often you see specialists or have tests done, and it prices that same year of care against every Medicare Advantage plan available where you live, all of them, unranked, sorted however you want. Year-round, you can ask what your current plan pays for a visit, a scan, or a prescription, and whether it needs approval, before you go instead of finding out from the bill. It reads the Evidence of Coverage, the Summary of Benefits, and the formulary, and it answers against them.
Neatly takes no money from any plan or broker, so the answer comes from your documents and nowhere else. It will not tell you which plan to choose and it will not rank plans, because that decision is yours to make with the real numbers in front of you. Neatly is a health app, not an insurance company, and it is not affiliated with Medicare or CMS. For free one-on-one help you can also contact your State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP), or call 1-800-MEDICARE.
FAQ
When is the deadline to change my Medicare Advantage plan for 2027?
Open enrollment runs October 15 to December 7, 2026. Changes you make by December 7 take effect January 1, 2027.
Why does a plan with a low premium sometimes cost more?
Because the premium is only one line. The copays and coinsurance you pay for specialist visits, scans, and prescriptions can add up to more than a higher-premium plan would have cost you over the year. What you spend depends on the care you actually use.
Does Neatly tell me which plan to choose?
No. It shows what every plan in your county would cost for the care you use, unranked, and you choose.
Is Neatly a broker?
No. No commission, no referral fee, no money from any plan or broker, ever.
How can Neatly estimate my costs without my claims?
It asks you what care you use and prices it against each plan's own documents. It is an estimate, and it is labeled as one.
See what next year would actually cost you. Join the early-access list and be among the first to compare your real costs across every plan where you live, before December 7.
