Your ANOC Letter, Explained

Every fall, Medicare Advantage and Part D members are mailed an Annual Notice of Change: a side-by-side of what the plan costs and covers now against what it will do from January 1. Plans must send it by September 30. This page walks you through that letter.

A banner tells you where you are in the year — waiting for the letter, reviewing it, inside the October 15 to December 7 Annual Enrollment Period, or past it, with the January 1 to March 31 Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment noted for people already in an Advantage plan, who may make one change then. Below that is an eight-item checklist you tick off while reading your own letter — premium, deductibles, copays, maximum out-of-pocket, the drug list, the pharmacy and provider networks, and extras such as dental or vision. Each says what to compare and the red flag to watch for.

It needs the letter itself; nothing is typed into the checklist and your checkmarks are not saved. The page also offers a printable Annual Enrollment prep sheet by email, and an optional callback form.

It cannot read your letter, know your plan, compare plans, or enroll you. If nothing important changed and you are content, the plan renews on its own. Medigap policies send no ANOC, though a separate drug plan does. One callout matters most: a non-renewal notice — your plan leaving Medicare or your area — is a different letter, carrying a Special Enrollment Period and often guaranteed issue rights to certain Medigap policies.