Medicare Open Enrollment in Broward County: Your Checklist for the 2027 Plan Year

Medicare open enrollment in Broward County runs from October 15 through December 7. Whatever plan you are in on December 8 is the plan you live with for all of 2027, and for most people that deadline passes without anyone doing anything at all.

That is usually a mistake, though not for the reason people expect. The problem is rarely that a plan was bad when you chose it. The problem is that plans change every January while your health stays where it is. A drug that was covered moves to a higher tier. A specialist leaves the network. The copay for the visit you make eight times a year goes up by fifteen dollars. None of that shows up until you are standing at a pharmacy counter in February.

This guide covers what actually changes, what to check, and where to get free help in Broward County that is not attached to a commission. Metropolitan Medical Centers is a medical practice, not an insurance agency, and we do not sell plans. What our social services team does is sit down with patients and help them read the paperwork.

The dates that matter

Medicare has several enrollment windows and they get confused with each other constantly. These are the ones that apply to most people already on Medicare.

• October 15 to December 7. The Annual Enrollment Period, which is what most people mean by open enrollment. You can join, switch or drop a Medicare Advantage plan, and join, switch or drop a Part D drug plan. Changes start January 1.
• January 1 to March 31. The Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period. If you are already in a Medicare Advantage plan, you get one chance to switch to a different one or go back to Original Medicare. You cannot use this window to join Medicare Advantage for the first time.
• Any time, if you qualify. Special Enrollment Periods open when your circumstances change: you move, you lose other coverage, your plan leaves the county, or you become eligible for Extra Help or Medicaid.
• Three months before through three months after your 65th birthday. The Initial Enrollment Period, for people signing up for the first time.

The one that catches people out is the second. A lot of people believe they are locked in until next October if they choose wrong. If you are in a Medicare Advantage plan and it turns out badly in January, you have until March 31 to move.

The letter that arrives before enrollment opens

By September 30 every year, your plan has to mail you an Annual Notice of Change. It is a thick envelope, it looks like junk mail, and a very large number of them go straight into the recycling.

They should not. The Annual Notice of Change is the only document that shows you, side by side, what your plan cost and covered this year against what it will cost and cover next year. Everything else that arrives in the mail this season is marketing.

• Look for the comparison table near the front. It puts this year and next year in two columns.
• Check the monthly premium, the deductible, and the maximum out-of-pocket.
• Check the copay for a primary care visit and for a specialist visit.
• Check the drug tiers. Plans move drugs between tiers every year, and a tier change can cost you more than a premium increase.
• Check whether the plan is still offered in Broward County at all. Plans do withdraw from counties, and if yours leaves you get a Special Enrollment Period.

If the envelope is already gone, you can request another copy from the plan’s member services number, which is printed on the back of your insurance card.

Five things worth checking every year

You do not need to become an expert on Medicare. You need to check five things, and four of them take about ten minutes if you have your medication list in front of you.

1. Are all of your medications still on the formulary?

A formulary is the plan’s list of covered drugs, and plans revise it every year. A medication that sat on tier 1 this year can move to tier 3 next year, or come off the list entirely, and neither change requires the plan to phone you about it.

2. Are your doctors still in network?

Networks change in both directions. A practice can leave a plan and a plan can drop a practice. If you see a specialist regularly, check that specialist by name rather than assuming the whole network held together.

3. What is the maximum out-of-pocket?

This is the number that matters in a bad year. It is the ceiling on what you can be asked to pay for covered medical services in a plan year. A plan with a low premium and a high maximum out-of-pocket is a bet that you will stay healthy, and that bet is worth making consciously rather than by accident.

4. What are the extra benefits actually worth?

Medicare Advantage plans advertise dental, vision, hearing, transportation and over-the-counter allowances. Those benefits are real, and they are also where the fine print lives. An allowance you cannot spend at any office near you is not a benefit. If a plan advertises dental coverage, check what it pays toward the work you actually need, not the headline number.

5. Do you qualify for help paying for any of it?

Plenty of people who qualify for assistance never apply, usually because nobody told them the programs existed. We wrote a separate guide to Medicare Savings Programs in Florida, which can cover your Part B premium, and our Part B assistance page explains the help we give with the paperwork itself.

Part D, the pharmacy, and the $2,000 cap

Prescription coverage is where open enrollment decisions turn into real money, and the rules changed meaningfully in 2025.

• There is now an annual cap on what you pay out of pocket for covered Part D drugs. Once you reach $2,000 in a calendar year, your covered prescriptions cost you nothing for the rest of that year. The old coverage gap that people called the donut hole is gone.
• You can spread that cost across the year. The Medicare Prescription Payment Plan lets you pay drug costs in monthly installments instead of facing a large bill at the pharmacy counter in January. You have to opt in. It does not lower what you pay in total, it changes when you pay it.
• Pharmacy choice affects the price. Plans have preferred pharmacies where your copay is lower. The same drug on the same plan can cost different amounts at two pharmacies a mile apart.
• A late enrollment penalty is permanent. If you go 63 days or more without creditable drug coverage after you were first eligible, a penalty is added to your Part D premium for as long as you have Part D.

If you are managing several prescriptions, this is worth doing carefully rather than quickly. Our on-site pharmacy team can print your current medication list so you have exact drug names and dosages when you compare plans. If that list turns out to be longer than you expected, our guide to polypharmacy warning signs is worth reading first.

Check the network before you check the premium

The most common regret we hear in January is not about money. It is a patient who switched plans for a lower premium and found out in the waiting room that their new coverage does not work where they have gone for years.

Run the checks in this order and you avoid most of that.

• First, confirm your primary care office takes the plan next year, not just this year.
• Second, confirm any specialist you see regularly is in network.
• Third, check your prescriptions against the formulary.
• Fourth, and only fourth, compare premiums and copays.
• Get network confirmation from the plan or from the office directly, not from an online directory listing. Those directories are frequently out of date.

Metropolitan Medical Centers accepts most Medicare Advantage plans and we see patients from across Broward County. Because plan participation is renegotiated every year, please call us at (954) 417-4499 with the exact plan name before you enroll and we will verify it rather than guess. We would much rather answer that call in November than sort it out in February.

Where to get free help in Broward County

You do not have to do this alone, and you do not have to pay anyone to help you.

• SHINE. Florida’s Serving Health Insurance Needs of Elders program offers free, unbiased Medicare counseling through the Department of Elder Affairs. The counselors are trained volunteers and they are not paid on commission, which is the part that matters. Reach them through the Florida SHINE website or the Elder Helpline at 1-800-963-5337.
• Medicare’s own Plan Finder. At medicare.gov/plan-compare you can enter your ZIP code and your actual drug list and get annual cost estimates rather than premiums alone. It is the only tool that prices your specific prescriptions.
• 1-800-MEDICARE. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in English and Spanish.
• Our social services team. We help patients read plan letters, gather documents and complete applications for assistance programs. Bilingual, English and Spanish.

One warning worth stating plainly. Medicare rules prohibit plans and agents from calling you without permission to sell you a plan. If someone phones out of the blue, pushes you toward a decision, or asks for your Medicare number before you have asked them for anything, hang up. Legitimate help does not arrive uninvited.

What happens after December 7

If you made a change, the new coverage begins January 1. A few practical things follow from that.

• Watch for a new insurance card in the mail during December or early January, and bring it to your first visit of the year.
• Do not throw the old card away until the new coverage has been confirmed at a real appointment.
• Fill any prescription you are close to running out of before the switch, so a formulary surprise does not leave you without medication.
• Book your Medicare Annual Wellness Visit early in the year. It is covered once every twelve months and it is the appointment most people forget to use.
• If you are due for immunizations, our guide to senior vaccines and what Medicare covers explains which ones fall under Part B and which fall under Part D.

And if you did nothing at all, you are not in trouble. Your plan renewed. Read the Annual Notice of Change anyway so the January changes are not a surprise, and remember that Medicare Advantage members get a second window from January 1 to March 31.

You can see everything we offer on our services page, or read more about primary care at Metropolitan Medical Centers. We care for adults of every age, not only people on Medicare.

Frequently Asked Questions