Newsroom · Mesa County

Can I Get Medigap If My Medicare Advantage Plan Ends?

Yes. A plan that leaves Medicare or leaves Mesa County hands you a federal guaranteed-issue right to buy a Medicare Supplement with no health questions — but only certain plan letters, only in a 60-days-before-to-63-days-after window, and only if you go back to Original Medicare instead of another Advantage plan.

Medicare On Main Data Desk

Published September 8, 2026 · 9 min read · Reviewed by Brian Penner

I have watched this letter change a decision that had been stuck for years. Someone in Fruita or the Redlands has been on an Advantage plan since 65, has thought about a Medicare Supplement every October, and has never applied because a knee, a stent or a diagnosis made the health questions a coin toss. Then the non-renewal notice arrives and the coin toss goes away. For a season, the company has to say yes. The rest of this page is about how wide that door is, which plans are behind it, and when it shuts.

What the letter actually gives you

Medicare.gov's plain description, from its "When can I buy a Medigap policy?" tool, for someone whose Advantage plan is leaving Medicare or will no longer cover where they live: "You can buy Medigap Plan A, B, C, D, F, G, K, or L that's sold by an insurance company in your state if you switch to Original Medicare." A guaranteed-issue right means the company must sell you the policy, must cover your pre-existing conditions, and cannot charge you more because of your health. In a state that otherwise underwrites, that is the whole ballgame.

The Colorado Division of Insurance's own Medigap guide lists the same trigger first among the situations that give Coloradans a guaranteed issue right: "You are in a Medicare Advantage Plan and your plan is leaving Medicare or stops giving care in your area, or you move out of the plan's service area." A plan whose contract is not renewed for 2027 is the first of those. A plan that keeps its contract but drops Mesa County from its service area is the second. Both count.

What does not count is a plan that merely changes. If your October envelope is the Annual Notice of Change — higher copays, a different drug tier, a hospital gone from the network — the plan still exists and you have no guaranteed-issue right from it. Per Medicare.gov, the non-renewal notice is the separate letter you get "if your plan is leaving the Medicare program in the coming year," and it arrives in October. Read which one you are holding before you plan around it.

Which Medigap plans are on the list — and which one is not

The federal list is specific, and the plan people most often want to hear about is the one that is missing from it.

Sources: Medicare.gov — When can I buy a Medigap policy? · Medicare.gov — Compare Medigap plan benefits. A company may voluntarily sell plans beyond this list; it is only required to sell these.

Two practical notes. First, Medicare.gov notes that Plans F and G "also offer a high-deductible plan in some states," with a $2,950 deductible in 2026 before the policy pays anything. For a household that wants catastrophic protection at a low premium, that version of G is worth pricing — and whether a particular company will issue its high-deductible version on a guaranteed-issue basis is a question to ask that company directly. Second, Plan N's absence from the list is not a quirk you can argue around. If you want N, ask the company whether it will offer it to you anyway, and get the answer in writing before you let anything else lapse.

The window, on a Mesa County calendar

Medicare.gov sets both edges: "You must apply for a Medigap policy: 60 days before the date your Medicare Advantage Plan coverage ends. No more than 63 days after your Medicare Advantage Plan coverage ends." Here is what that looks like for a plan whose contract runs out on December 31, 2026.

Sources: Medicare.gov — When can I buy a Medigap policy? · Medicare.gov — Special Enrollment Periods · Medicare.gov — Plan Non-Renewal Notice. The November 1 and March 4 dates are our arithmetic from a December 31 end date; count from your own.

The thing to notice is that the Medigap window and the Advantage-plan safety net are two different clocks. The Special Enrollment Period for a plan whose contract "isn't renewed" runs "between December 8 and the last day in February of the following year" and is for switching to another Advantage or drug plan. The Medigap right runs 63 days past your coverage end. They overlap, but they are not the same door, and using the first one can close the second.

The condition that undoes the right

Read this sentence twice, because it is the one that generates the phone calls in March. Medicare.gov: "You only have this right if you switch to Original Medicare (rather than joining another Medicare Advantage Plan)."

So the sequence matters. If you enroll in a replacement Advantage plan for 2027 during Annual Enrollment — even a good one, even one that keeps your doctors at St. Mary's or Community Hospital — you have not switched to Original Medicare, and the guaranteed-issue Medigap right from the non-renewal does not attach. If you then decide in February that you would rather have a Supplement, you are back to an underwritten application in a state with no birthday rule. The right rewards the person who decides first that they want Original Medicare plus Medigap, and then executes it in order.

There is one nearby right worth checking if you are new to Advantage. Medicare.gov's trial right: if you joined a Medicare Advantage plan for the first time in the past 12 months, you can drop it and buy "any Medigap policy that's sold by an insurance company in your state" — a wider list than the non-renewal right, and it includes Plan N. The Special Enrollment Periods page puts the same right this way: "Your chance to drop your Medicare Advantage Plan lasts for 12 months after you join the Medicare Advantage Plan for the first time." If both rights apply to you, the trial right is the better one to use.

Why this door is worth more in Colorado than it looks

A handful of states give Medigap enrollees an annual no-questions window. Colorado is not one of them, and it has no annual Medigap open enrollment either. That means the normal way onto a Medicare Supplement here, after your one-time six-month window at 65 has passed, is an application with health questions that a company may decline. The Division of Insurance guide describes the situations that waive that — the non-renewal you are holding, an employer plan ending, the trial rights above, a Medigap company going bankrupt, and one Colorado-only addition for people who had Medicaid when they first became eligible for Medicare and later lose it.

Mesa County's health profile is the reason the waiver matters. CDC PLACES puts high blood pressure at 26.6% of adults here, diabetes at 8.1% and coronary heart disease at 5.2%. Any one of those can turn an underwritten Medigap application into a maybe. Inside the 63-day window, none of them can.

There is a version of this decision for households that have never worried about premiums. If you chose Advantage for the extras rather than the price, and what you actually want is the freedom to see any doctor who takes Medicare — in Grand Junction, in Denver, at a specialist out of state — with a Supplement absorbing most of the 20%, this is the year the underwriting question is off the table. It will not be off the table next October.

What you give up, honestly

Original Medicare plus Medigap is not a free upgrade, and the trade-offs are worth naming. You will pay a monthly Medigap premium on top of Part B, plus a stand-alone Part D premium. You will lose whatever dental, vision, hearing or gym benefit the Advantage plan bundled in. And you will need to pick that drug plan yourself, on the same October 15, 2026–December 7, 2026 calendar, from that plan's own drug list — a separate check we walk through in our formulary post.

In exchange: no network, no referrals, no prior-authorization letters from the plan, and a supplement that renews for life as long as you pay it. Which of those columns weighs more is a household question, not a rule. Our Medigap vs. Advantage post lays out the arithmetic without a thumb on the scale.

The order to do it in

1. Confirm it is a non-renewal, not an ANOC. The guaranteed-issue right comes from the plan leaving, not from the plan changing. Keep the letter; Medigap companies will ask for a copy as proof.
2. Decide the structure before the plan. Original Medicare plus Medigap, or another Advantage plan. Everything downstream depends on that, and the Medigap door only opens on the first answer.
3. Price the listed letters. A, B, D, G, K or L — Plan G first for most households, high-deductible G if you want catastrophic-only protection. Premiums for the same letter vary by company; the Division of Insurance guide publishes rate ranges.
4. Apply from November 1. That is 60 days before a December 31 end date. Set the policy to start January 1. It cannot start earlier; it should not start later.
5. Pick a stand-alone Part D plan during Annual Enrollment. Run your bottles through Plan Compare so it starts January 1 too. Do not leave this to the February safety net — the late enrollment penalty counts uncovered months.
6. Do not join a replacement Advantage plan "just in case." That is the one move that cancels the right. If you want a fallback, the December 8 – February SEP is your fallback; use it only if you have changed your mind about the whole structure.
7. Get everything in writing before the 63-day mark. By our count, March 4, 2027 for a December 31 end date. After that, Colorado is an underwriting state again.

What we can and cannot tell you in September

CMS's CY2026 landscape file counted 16 Medicare Advantage prescription-drug plans in Mesa County from 5 organizations, 8 of them PPOs. Which of those continue into 2027, and which Medigap companies will be quoting which premiums for a 2027 start, becomes public when CMS releases the 2027 plan data this fall and companies file their rates. We will not name a plan that is leaving before its members have been told, and we will not quote a 2027 Medigap premium we have not seen. What we can tell you now, because it is federal law and not a rate filing, is everything on this page: the list of letters, the two edges of the window, and the one condition that closes it.

How we know all this: the Medicare On Main Data Desk frames every article with public data. The guaranteed-issue rule for a Medicare Advantage plan that is leaving Medicare or will no longer cover where you live — the plan letters A, B, C, D, F, G, K and L, the "60 days before" and "no more than 63 days after" application window, the "only if you switch to Original Medicare" condition, the automatic return to Original Medicare, and the 12-month trial right's "any Medigap policy" language — was read directly from Medicare.gov's "When can I buy a Medigap policy?" tool and its Special Enrollment Periods page. The Plan C and F restriction for people who turned 65 on or after January 1, 2020, the $2,950 2026 high-deductible F/G amount and the $8,000 and $4,000 Plan K and L limits come from Medicare.gov's Medigap plan-benefits comparison. The December 8 through last-day-of-February non-renewal Special Enrollment Period is from Medicare.gov's Special Enrollment Periods page, and the October non-renewal notice timing from its Plan Non-Renewal Notice page. Colorado's guaranteed-issue situations, including the Medicaid-loss addition, are from the Colorado Division of Insurance and Colorado SHIP Medigap guide for 2025–2026. Mesa County plan counts come from the official CMS CY2026 Medicare Advantage / Part D landscape file, category MA-PD; county chronic-condition prevalence is CDC PLACES County Data 2023. The November 1 and March 4 dates are our own arithmetic from a December 31 coverage end. No 2027 plan-level premium, carrier or star rating is stated anywhere on this page, because CMS has not published them. No plan, carrier or organization is named, criticized or endorsed here. This is education, not advice; confirm your own rights and dates with the plan, a licensed agent, the Colorado Division of Insurance, or Medicare.gov.