Medicare Advantage plans in New York

New York's Medicare Advantage market in 2026

• 53% of New York's roughly four million Medicare beneficiaries were in a Medicare Advantage plan in January 2026, against 55% nationally.
• 25 plans are available to the average New Yorker; the count runs from a handful in rural counties to dozens in the five boroughs.
• A large share are Special Needs Plans. New York has one of the highest concentrations of SNP enrollment in the country, mostly Dual Eligible plans for people with Medicare and Medicaid.
• Most plans charge no premium beyond Part B; nationally three quarters of enrollees pay $0 extra, and 99% are in plans that use prior authorization for some services.

Those are state figures, and they hide the fact that matters most: a Medicare Advantage plan is filed and priced by county. The plan your cousin has in Buffalo is not for sale in Albany County, and the hospitals that accept a carrier in Rochester tell you nothing about Troy. Every comparison is local, which is why this page ends with the county pages.

Who sells Medicare Advantage in New York

Three kinds of carrier, and every county has a different mix:

• National carriers — UnitedHealthcare (including the AARP-branded plans), Humana, Aetna, Wellcare and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield sell in most of the state.
• Downstate plans — EmblemHealth, VNS Health and others built around New York City, Long Island and the Hudson Valley, several of them specialists in dual-eligible plans.
• Regional upstate plans — CDPHP in Albany and MVP in Schenectady in the Capital Region, with their own counterparts in western and northern New York; Trinity Health Plan New York and Devoted Health are newer to the upstate market.

In the Capital Region I'm appointed with eleven of them; that page lists what each sells and which of the region's hospitals list it. I don't offer every plan in your area, and the plan is chosen by checking your doctors, hospital and prescriptions, not by carrier name.

The numbers every New York plan works within

What's specific to New York

Advantage is less final here

In most of the country, leaving Medicare Advantage after your first year means applying for a Medigap policy that can refuse you or charge more for your health. New York doesn't allow that: every Medigap policy sold in the state is guaranteed-issue in any month, and everyone of every age pays the same community rate. Practically, a New Yorker can try an Advantage plan and, if it doesn't suit, return to Original Medicare with a Supplement at the next enrollment window. The switching guide covers the one caveat (a possible pre-existing-condition wait if you had a gap in coverage), and the Advantage vs Medigap comparison puts the two routes side by side in dollars.

Dual-eligible New Yorkers have integrated plans

If you have Medicare and full Medicaid, New York offers Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans that are integrated with your Medicaid coverage: IB-Dual (Integrated Benefits for Dually Eligible Enrollees) for people who don't need long-term services and supports, and Medicaid Advantage Plus for people who do. One plan, one card, one set of appeals. Dual-eligible enrollees can also move into an integrated D-SNP, or back to Original Medicare, in any month rather than once a year. The D-SNP guide walks through eligibility; help paying for Medicare covers the Medicare Savings Program and Extra Help, which many New Yorkers qualify for without knowing it.

EPIC works with Advantage drug coverage

New York's EPIC program for people 65 and over pays part of the Part D premium and lowers drug copays, and it works with the drug coverage inside an Advantage plan (an MA-PD) just as it does with a stand-alone Part D plan. The EPIC guide has the income limits.

Retiree coverage that argues with Advantage

New York has an unusual number of retirees with coverage that interacts with Medicare in specific ways: NYSHIP for state, SUNY and many local-government retirees, union plans, and the VA. Joining an outside Advantage plan can conflict with some of them. If you have any retiree coverage, that check comes before any plan comparison; the NYSHIP guide covers the largest group.

Free, unbiased counselling exists

Every New York county has a HIICAP office (New York's State Health Insurance Assistance Program) that will review every plan sold in your county at no charge; here are the Capital Region offices. Many people use HIICAP to see the whole field and an agent to enroll and stay in touch afterwards; the two are compatible.

When New Yorkers can join or change a plan

• Initial Enrollment Period — the seven months around your 65th birthday, or when Part B starts.
• Annual Enrollment Period, October 15 – December 7 — join, switch or drop, for January 1. Your current plan's Annual Notice of Change arrives by September 30; read it before the window opens.
• Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment, January 1 – March 31 — one change for people already on an Advantage plan: to another Advantage plan, or to Original Medicare with a Part D plan.
• Special Enrollment Periods — a move, loss of employer coverage, Medicaid or Extra Help status (monthly), a plan leaving the market, a 5-star plan in your area, among others.

How to compare the plans in your county

The short version is the plan finder: eight questions, and it tells you which of these shapes fit and which carriers your hospital lists. The long version:

1. Hospitals first. Which health system you'd want in a bad year, and whether it lists the carrier. In the Capital Region that's Albany Med, St. Peter's and Ellis, each with its own list.
2. Doctors, by name, in the specific plan's directory, not the carrier's general one.
3. Prescriptions, by drug and dose, against the plan's formulary and preferred pharmacies.
4. The maximum out-of-pocket and the copays you'd actually hit — specialist, hospital day, imaging, outpatient surgery — rather than the premium.
5. HMO or PPO, based on whether all your care is in one system and how much of the year you spend elsewhere.
6. The extras last. Dental and hearing allowances are real money for some people; they're also the benefits most likely to change next January.

Medicare Advantage plans by county

These pages cover the hospitals, carriers and local quirks of each Capital Region county. The full 2027 plan lists for each county, from the CMS landscape files, go up here as soon as they're published in October.

By town: Clifton Park · Saratoga Springs · Albany · Schenectady · Troy. Outside the Capital Region, Medicare's Plan Finder at medicare.gov/plan-compare shows every plan at any New York ZIP code, and I'm licensed to help across the state by phone.

I do not offer every plan available in your area. Any information I provide is limited to the plans I do offer in your area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-MEDICARE, or your State Health Insurance Assistance Program for information on all of your options. Not connected with or endorsed by the U.S. government, the Social Security Administration or the federal Medicare program.