Starting in 2027, Your Advantage Plan No Longer Has to Remind You About the Benefit Money You Haven’t Spent.

Your Medicare Advantage plan was supposed to send you a letter this summer. It would have listed supplemental benefits you had not used during the first half of the year, potentially reminding you about dental coverage, an over-the-counter allowance or another extra before the year got away from you. The procedure was scrapped before the first notices ever went out.

A 2024 Medicare rule had required plans to send the personalized notice every year between June 30 and July 31, beginning in 2026. Then the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reversed course just before the first mailing was due. For Medicare Advantage members, that means the summer nudge is gone. Keeping track of what is still sitting unused in the plan is now largely up to them.

The Letter That Never Arrived

The unused-benefits notice was supposed to do something Medicare paperwork rarely does: tell each member what he or she had not used. If the plan offered dental care, transportation, an over-the-counter benefit or another supplemental perk and the enrollee had not touched it during the first six months, the notice would have identified it and explained how to access it.

CMS rescinded the requirement in its 2027 Medicare Advantage and Part D final rule, effective June 1, 2026. The agency said members already receive benefit details in their annual Evidence of Coverage and that many plans communicate through newsletters, care coordination and other outreach. CMS also pointed to a survey of 1,846 Medicare Advantage enrollees in which 70% reported using at least one supplemental benefit during the prior year.

Still, CMS acknowledged that information on how much these benefits actually get used remains limited. The practical result is simpler: there is no longer a federal rule requiring a personalized summer reminder.

Extra Benefits Are Easy to Forget

That matters because Medicare Advantage plans increasingly compete on extras. One policy may offer a dental allowance. Another may provide an over-the-counter card. Members with qualifying chronic conditions can sometimes receive food, transportation or utility assistance through Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill (SSBCI). But these are plan benefits, not unrestricted cash.

Eligibility, covered items, vendors and spending periods can all vary. Starting in 2027, debit cards used to administer supplemental benefits also must be tied electronically to covered items and limited to the specific plan year. CMS is separately requiring plans to publicly post their SSBCI eligibility criteria so shoppers can see whether they qualify before enrollment. So one consumer protection disappeared while others got tighter. IRMAA surcharges and other Medicare coverage gaps are among the traps we cataloged in a free Medicare guide.

December 31 Can Matter as Much as December 7

The Annual Enrollment Period for 2027 coverage runs from October 15 through December 7, 2026. That is the time to decide whether the plan still fits. But December 31 can matter too. A benefit administered for one plan year does not automatically become next year’s benefit. Depending on the plan, allowances may also reset monthly, quarterly or annually. That makes the fall a good time to check two things at once: what remains from 2026 and what will actually be offered in 2027.

Before the Year Closes Checklist

Without a required summer reminder, these three steps can keep useful benefits from disappearing unnoticed:

1. Log into the member portal or call the plan and ask which supplemental benefits remain available for 2026 and when each one expires or resets.
2. Read the 2027 Evidence of Coverage before letting the plan renew automatically, especially if dental, OTC, food or transportation benefits influenced the original choice.
3. If an SSBCI benefit is important for next year, check the plan’s published eligibility criteria before counting its advertised value in the comparison.

The canceled letter does not take the benefits away. It takes away the required reminder. That makes the remaining balance, the expiration date and the fine print three things worth checking before the calendar does the resetting for you.

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