About the project

About Medicare Plan Exits

Medicare Plan Exits is an independent, county-level data project about Medicare Advantage plans that are leaving or changing for 2027. It is built from CMS contract, enrollment, crosswalk, and star-rating files — not from copied news articles.

The site exists because “a plan is leaving” is not a useful answer when you need to know whether your plan is leaving your county. A national headline can hide a local exit, and a local exit can be invisible in a national count. We publish the county and plan detail behind the headline, with the source and the limitation attached.

Medicare Plan Exits is not affiliated with CMS, HHS, or Medicare.gov. We do not sell insurance plans and we do not receive compensation from the plans shown on this site. The site is information only and is not insurance advice.

Data sources

• CMS CPSC Contract Info and Enrollment Info, October 2026. Plan names, carriers, plan types, and county-level enrollment for 2026.
• CMS 2027 Part C&D Plan Crosswalk. The CMS mapping from each 2026 contract and plan to its 2027 status: renewal, renewal with service-area change, consolidation, or termination.
• CMS 2027 Star Ratings. Contract-level Part C summary ratings. We apply the contract rating to each plan under that contract and label it as contract-level.
• U.S. Census 2020 ZCTA-to-county relationship file. Used only for the ZIP code → county step in the lookup tool.
• SHIP locator. State SHIP program names and phone numbers, verified against the SHIP locator.

Current data version: 2026-10-24. Last updated: October 24, 2026. The source files and SHA-256 hashes are stored with the dataset in the site repository.

How a plan is classified

We start with every Medicare Advantage contract and plan that has county-level enrollment in the October 2026 CPSC file. We exclude most employer group plans, PACE plans, cost plans, and stand-alone Part D plans. We then join each plan to the 2027 crosswalk.

• Exiting: every crosswalk row for the plan is a termination or non-renewal.
• Continuing unchanged: the plan renews with the same contract and plan ID.
• Continuing — service area reduced or expanded: the plan renews, but the crosswalk marks a service-area change.
• Continuing — plan ID may change: the plan is consolidated into another contract or plan.

A previous plan can appear in more than one crosswalk row. We treat the plan as exiting only when every row is a termination. If any row is a renewal, consolidation, or service-area change, the plan is not counted as exiting.

What this dataset cannot tell you

• 2027 county service areas are not in the CPSC files. A plan marked “Renewal Plan with SAR” continues in 2027 but may leave some counties. The crosswalk does not name the counties removed. Confirm the 2027 service area with the plan.
• “No plan renewing” is derived. Our no-renewal county flag means no 2026 plan in that county is listed as renewing. It is not an CMS 2027 county availability file. New plans can enter a county.
• Star ratings are contract-level. They are not plan-level quality ratings and should not be used as a ranking.
• Premiums, deductibles, networks, and drug lists are not included. These fields are not in the CPSC files we use. We do not estimate them.
• Some plan types are excluded. Employer group plans, PACE plans, and cost plans are outside the main MA plan count.
• National totals are county-assigned enrollment. The CPSC county file does not assign every MA member to a county, so our national enrollment total is lower than the KFF national MA estimate.

These limits are repeated on the pages where they matter. We do not present a derived number as a CMS county availability finding.

Update schedule

A GitHub Actions job checks CMS files every Monday at 06:00 UTC and can be run manually when CMS publishes an unscheduled update. The job rebuilds the JSON dataset, runs validation, and commits only when the data changes. The Astro site is then rebuilt and deployed. We do not change the “last updated” date unless the underlying data changes.

Editorial standards

Pages are written and checked by the Medicare Plan Exits editorial team against the CMS source files listed on the page. We do not invent reviewer names, credentials, testimonials, or plan ratings. If a page has a named licensed reviewer in the future, that person’s name and review date will appear on the page and on this page.

We use plain English, show every number with its source and date, and avoid words like “official,” “approved,” “best,” or “guaranteed” in a way that suggests government endorsement or a plan recommendation.

Corrections

If a number is wrong, send the county, plan name or plan ID, the value you believe is correct, and a source we can check. Email [email protected]. We correct the data and add a changelog entry when the source confirms the change.

Sources

1. Monthly Enrollment by Contract/Plan/State/County (CPSC), October 2026 — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2026-10. 2026 county and plan enrollment, plan names, plan types, carrier names.
2. 2027 Part C&D Plan Crosswalk — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2026-10-01. CMS mapping from 2026 contract/plan IDs to 2027 status.
3. 2027 Star Ratings Data Tables — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2026-10-08. Contract-level 2027 Part C star ratings.
4. MA Plan Directory — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2026-10. Carrier and organization names.
5. Medicare Advantage in 2026: Enrollment Update and Key Trends — KFF, 2026. National MA enrollment context (35.2 million, 55% of eligible beneficiaries).
6. CNN: More than 3 million Medicare Advantage enrollees need to find new plans for 2027 — Better Medicare Alliance, 2026. Reported estimate that about 3.2 million people need new plans for 2027.
7. Medicare Advantage insurer exits pile up for 2027 — Modern Healthcare, 2026. Reported figure of 181 counties with no MA plans in 2027.
8. CMS Finalizes 2027 Medicare Advantage Rates: 1,471 Counties, 32 Carriers — SeniorWire, 2026. Reported figures of 1,471 counties with exit notices and 32 exiting carriers.
9. UnitedHealthcare and Humana are ending Medicare Advantage plans for nearly 1 million people — Fortune, 2026-10-20. Carrier-level context for UnitedHealthcare and Humana exits.
10. 42 CFR 422.2267 — Required materials and content (non-renewal notice timing) — eCFR, current. October 2 non-renewal notice deadline for contracts ending December 31.
11. Medicare Plan Finder — Medicare.gov, current. Medicare.gov plan comparison and enrollment.
12. Get ready to buy a Medigap policy — Medicare.gov, current. Medigap guaranteed-issue rights and enrollment windows.
13. State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) locator — SHIP TA Center, 2026-10-25. Free local Medicare counseling phone numbers.
14. 2020 ZCTA to County Relationship File — U.S. Census Bureau, 2020. ZIP code to county lookup.

Data version 2026-10-24 · Last updated October 24, 2026 · 30 published county pages · 10 published states.