If you’re enrolled in a Medicare Advantage or Part D plan, one piece of mail matters more than almost anything else you’ll get this fall: the Annual Notice of Change, usually shortened to ANOC. It’s a letter your plan is required to send every year explaining exactly what’s changing about your coverage for the next plan year. A lot of people glance at it, assume nothing important changed, and set it aside. That’s a mistake worth avoiding, because a plan that worked well this year can quietly become a worse fit next year without you ever deciding to switch anything. If you’re working through your AEP 2026 prep checklist, reading your ANOC carefully should be near the top of the list.
What the ANOC Actually Is
The ANOC is a summary document, not the full rulebook for your plan. Your Medicare Advantage or Part D plan is required to mail it by September 30 each year, ahead of when AEP 2026 opens on October 15. It lays out, side by side, what your plan’s premium, deductible, copays, covered drugs, and network look like this year versus what they’ll look like starting January 1, 2027, at the start of Plan Year 2027.
It’s different from your plan’s Evidence of Coverage (EOC), which is a much longer document spelling out every detail of your benefits. Think of the ANOC as the highlight reel and the EOC as the full transcript. For most people, the ANOC alone is enough to spot whether something meaningful is changing. You’d only need to dig into the EOC if the ANOC flags a change you want to understand in more depth.
The Sections Worth Reading Line by Line
Not every part of the ANOC deserves equal attention. A few sections matter more than others:
- Premium and deductible changes. Your plan-specific premium and deductible can go up, down, or stay flat for Plan Year 2027, separate from federal figures like the standard Part B premium, which is set by CMS each year regardless of which plan you’re in.
- Drug formulary changes. This is often the section that catches people off guard. A medication you take regularly can move to a higher cost tier, or drop off the formulary entirely, even if the plan’s overall structure hasn’t changed.
- Provider network changes. Doctors, specialists, and hospitals can leave a plan’s network from one year to the next. If you have a specialist you see regularly, it’s worth confirming they’re still listed for Plan Year 2027, not just assuming last year’s network carried over.
- Extra benefits. Many Medicare Advantage plans include dental, vision, hearing, or fitness benefits that can change in scope or disappear year to year. If one of these was a reason you picked the plan, check whether it’s still there.
Common Changes That Catch People Off Guard
A few patterns show up often enough to call out specifically. A plan can keep the same premium while moving a common medication to a higher tier, which raises your actual costs even though the headline number looks unchanged. A plan can also adjust its out-of-pocket maximum, which matters more than it might seem, since that number caps what you’d pay in a bad health year. And network changes are easy to miss because they don’t always come with a clear explanation of why a provider was dropped — the ANOC will typically note that a change happened, but you may need to check the plan’s current directory to confirm your specific doctor’s status.
None of this means your plan did something wrong. Plans are allowed to adjust these details annually, and most of the time the changes are modest. The point of reading the ANOC isn’t to expect the worst — it’s to make sure you’re choosing to stay in your plan on purpose, rather than by default.
What to Do After You’ve Read It
Once you’ve gone through the ANOC, hold it up against your actual medication list and doctor list, which is worth building now if you haven’t already. If everything still lines up, you’re done. Coverage continues automatically into Plan Year 2027 if you take no action, and there’s nothing wrong with staying put when your plan still fits.
If something doesn’t line up, that’s what AEP 2026 is for. Running from October 15 through December 7, it’s your yearly window to switch Medicare Advantage plans, switch Part D plans, or move between Medicare Advantage and Original Medicare. It’s also worth checking your plan’s current star rating alongside any ANOC changes, since a lower rating combined with a shrinking network or a shrinking formulary is a stronger signal to compare alternatives than either issue alone. For a broader look at how Medicare Advantage and Original Medicare with a Medigap policy compare, our coverage guide walks through the fuller decision.
If You Don’t Receive an ANOC
If you’re enrolled in a Medicare Advantage or Part D plan and haven’t received your ANOC by early October, don’t assume nothing is changing. Contact your plan directly or log into your online member account, since ANOC letters are also typically posted there. If you’re on Original Medicare with a Medigap policy and no separate Part D plan, you generally won’t get an ANOC in the same way, since Original Medicare’s core benefits don’t change plan to plan — though it’s still worth checking whether your Medigap premium is changing for the coming year.
Reading a letter isn’t glamorous, and it’s easy to see why so many people skip it. But the ANOC is one of the few pieces of mail that directly tells you, in plain terms, exactly what’s different about your coverage before you have to decide anything. Spending fifteen minutes with it in September means that by the time AEP 2026 opens, you already know whether you’re looking to compare plans or simply confirming your current one still works. If any of the terms in your ANOC are unfamiliar, our Medicare glossary can help translate the jargon, and our common Medicare mistakes page covers other pitfalls worth avoiding during this same stretch of the year.
Have questions? Kayla Price is a licensed insurance agent serving NC, SC, GA, FL, VA, MD, MI, KS, TX, and OH. Call (866) 648-1578 or visit priceservicesgroup.com.