How to Check a Medicare Advantage Plan in the Plan Finder for 2027: Step by Step

This article is for general educational purposes only and is not insurance or medical advice. We are not affiliated with the U.S. government, Medicare, or any insurer. For official information, visit Medicare.gov or call 1-800-MEDICARE. See our Medical & Financial Disclaimer for details.

Every article on this site ends by sending you to the same place: Medicare’s own Plan Finder, the only tool that shows every plan sold at your address with prices worked out for your own prescriptions. It is also a tool most people use once a year, under a deadline, without anyone explaining what the screens are doing.

So we went through it for 2027, screen by screen, on October 18, 2026, using a Chicago ZIP code (60601, Cook County, Illinois) as the example. Below is what each step asks, why it matters, one default setting that can mislead you, and the handful of numbers worth writing down before you choose anything.

Before You Start: Have These Ready

• Your ZIP code. Plans are sold county by county, so the ZIP decides which plans you see.
• A list of every prescription you take regularly, with the strength and how often you take it. The bottle label has all three.
• The pharmacy you use, or two you would be happy to use.
• The doctors and hospitals you would not want to give up. Names and, if possible, the city they practice in.
• Whether you get any help with costs — Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, a Medicare Savings Program or Extra Help with drug costs. The tool asks.

You can use the Plan Finder without an account. Logging in with a Medicare account saves your drug and pharmacy list for next year and shows your current coverage, but it doesn’t change which plans you see.

The Steps, in the Order the Tool Asks Them

Step 1: Choose the year and enter your ZIP code

The first screen asks which year you need coverage for, and offers both 2026 and 2027. During the enrollment window that runs from October 15 to December 7, 2026, the choice you are making is for 2027; make sure that is the year selected. A notice at the top of the results confirms which year you are viewing, with a link to switch.

Step 2: Choose the type of plan

Three options: a Medicare Advantage Plan (Part C), a Medicare drug plan (Part D), or a Medigap policy. This is the decision covered in our Medicare Advantage vs Medicare Supplement guide. If you are not sure yet, run the search twice, once each way. The rest of this article follows the Medicare Advantage path.

Step 3: Say whether you get help with costs

The tool lists Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, a Medicare Savings Program and Extra Help. Answer accurately: the help you get changes the costs it shows you, and if you have both Medicare and Medicaid it adds Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans to your results. Those plans tend to carry much larger extra benefits; in our count of the 2027 benefit filings, the typical over-the-counter allowance on a dual eligible plan is about $900 a year against about $200 on an ordinary plan.

Step 4: Add your drugs — do not skip this

The tool asks whether you want to use drug costs to compare plans. Choose Yes, include drug costs, then add each drug by typing its name and selecting the strength and quantity, and choose your pharmacy. This is the step that turns the results from a list of premiums into an estimate of what each plan would cost you over the year.

Here is why skipping it is risky. The results are sorted by default by lowest drug + premium cost. If you haven’t entered any drugs, that figure is just the yearly premium, so every $0 plan ties at $0 and they come out in an order that tells you nothing. In our Chicago test, the very first plan on the list was one that includes no drug coverage at all. The tool does say so on the plan’s card, in small print under “Drug deductible”, but nothing about its position in the list warns you.

That is not a one-time thing. For 2027 there are 357 ordinary Medicare Advantage plans without drug coverage, sold in 2,975 of the country’s 3,131 counties, and 352 of them are HMOs or PPOs that don’t let you add a separate drug plan. We explain what that means for you in our article on Part C versus Part D.

Step 5: Add your doctors

The next screen, “Add important health care providers”, lets you search for your doctors by name and ZIP code. Once added, each plan in the results shows whether they are in its network. It is the most useful screen in the tool and the easiest to skip, because there is a “Skip adding providers” link right below it.

Treat the answer as a first filter, not a guarantee. Network listings can be out of date. Before you enroll, call each doctor’s office and ask whether they will accept that specific plan, by its full name, for 2027.

Step 6: Read the results the right way

For our Chicago ZIP code the tool showed 48 Medicare Advantage plans, with special needs plans switched off (a toggle at the top, “Include Special Needs Plans (SNPs)?”, turns them on). Three controls matter:

• Sort. Four options: lowest yearly drug deductible, lowest health plan deductible, lowest drug + premium cost, and lowest monthly premium. Once your drugs are entered, “lowest drug + premium cost” is the most useful.
• Filters. Plan type (HMO, PPO, PFFS), benefits (vision, dental, hearing, transportation, fitness), insurer, drug coverage (includes / doesn’t include) and star rating. If you need drug coverage, set the filter to “Includes drug coverage” right away.
• Compare. “Add to compare” on up to three plans puts them side by side.

One thing the tool cannot do is sort by the out-of-pocket maximum, the cap on what a bad year can cost you. You have to read it off each card, where it appears as “Maximum you pay for health services”. PPOs show two figures there. In our test, one PPO showed $4,300 in-network and $6,300 in and out of network combined; another showed $4,700 and $7,200. The first figure is what applies if you stay in network; the second is the ceiling once out-of-network care is counted too.

Step 7: Open the plan details before you enroll

Each card has “See plan details”, which shows the full cost sharing and benefits, and “Enroll”. Don’t press “Enroll” from the list. Open the details of your final two or three plans first and check them against the five numbers below.

The Five Numbers to Write Down for Each Plan

Every card in the results shows all of these. Copy them into a table for each plan on your shortlist, and you will be comparing the plans rather than the marketing.

Write down	Where it is on the card	What’s typical for 2027
Total drug + premium cost for the year	“Total Drug & Premium Cost (for 2027)” — only meaningful once your drugs are entered	Depends entirely on your drugs
Out-of-pocket maximum	“Maximum you pay for health services”	Median $7,100 in-network across all plans; the legal maximum is $9,850
Drug deductible	“Drug deductible” under Other Costs	Median $650 on ordinary plans with drug coverage; maximum $700
Health deductible	“Health deductible” under Other Costs	Varies widely; many plans have none
Star rating	Next to the plan name	61.2% of rated plans have four stars or more

The “typical” column is our own count from the CMS 2027 plan file and star ratings, explained in our methodology. It is there to tell you whether a plan’s figure is high or low, not what your plan will be.

Then add a sixth line for anything you specifically need: whether your doctors are in network, whether the plan covers hearing aids or glasses, whether it includes transportation. For context on what plans actually offer, our count of the 2027 filings found an over-the-counter allowance on 58% of ordinary plans; the full picture is in our guide to over-the-counter benefits.

What the Plan Finder Can’t Tell You

• Whether your doctor will really see you on that plan. Only the office can confirm it.
• Which services need prior authorization. That is in the plan’s Evidence of Coverage, the full contract each plan publishes.
• The exact amount and rules of the extra benefits — how much is on an over-the-counter card, how often it refreshes, where you can spend it. The card says only whether a benefit “is available”.
• How a plan has treated its members. The star rating is the closest measure, and our guide to how star ratings are built explains what it covers.

For anything the tool leaves open, you can call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) or your State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP). Both are free, and neither sells insurance.

Deadlines

The Annual Enrollment Period runs from October 15 to December 7, and the plan has to receive your application by December 7 for the change to start on January 1, 2027. If you are already in a Medicare Advantage plan, there is a second chance from January 1 to March 31 to switch to another Medicare Advantage plan or go back to Original Medicare. Our guide to the Annual Enrollment Period covers both windows.

Questions Readers Ask

Do I need a Medicare account to use the Plan Finder? No. You can search and compare without logging in. An account saves your drug list and pharmacies for next time and shows your current plan.

Why does every plan show $0 for the year? Because you haven’t entered any drugs, so the yearly figure only counts premiums, and many plans have none. Add your prescriptions and the figures will separate.

Is the plan at the top of the list the best one? Not necessarily. It is the cheapest by whichever sort is selected, based on what you have entered. With no drugs entered, the order among $0 plans means nothing — in our test the top plan had no drug coverage.

Can I enroll directly from the Plan Finder? Yes, each plan has an “Enroll” button. Check the plan details and confirm your doctors first, because after December 7 your options to change are limited.

Bottom Line

The Plan Finder is good, but it answers the questions you give it. Enter your drugs, add your doctors, filter for drug coverage if you need it, and read the out-of-pocket maximum on every card yourself, because the tool won’t sort by it. Write down five numbers per plan, check the details of your last two or three, and confirm your doctors by phone before you press “Enroll”.

Sources

• Medicare Plan Finder — Medicare.gov. Every screen, option, sort and filter described here, and the Chicago example (ZIP 60601, 48 Medicare Advantage plans without special needs plans, the plan without drug coverage at the top of the default sort, and the two PPO out-of-pocket figures), as seen on October 18, 2026.
• Joining a plan — Medicare.gov. Source for the October 15 to December 7 window, the December 7 receipt deadline and the January 1 to March 31 Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period.
• CY2027 Landscape file and 2027 Star Ratings Data Tables — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Source for the median out-of-pocket maximum, the $9,850 ceiling, the drug deductibles, the 357 plans without drug coverage and the share of plans at four stars or more (our own count).
• PBP Benefits – 2027 — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Source for the over-the-counter allowance figures (our own count).

The Plan Finder was walked through on October 18, 2026. Its screens can change; if something here no longer matches what you see, write to contact@medicareplancompass.com and we will update it.

Disclaimer: Plan figures reflect 2027 data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and vary by state, county and plan. Always confirm current details directly with Medicare.gov, 1-800-MEDICARE, or a licensed agent before making a decision.