By Minneapolis Senior Advisor Care Team · October 16, 2026
Medicare open enrollment runs October 15 to December 7, 2026. Here is what Twin Cities families should check, how Minnesota's Medigap rules differ, and why no Medicare plan pays for assisted living.
Why October is the month to check your parent's Medicare
Every year, between October 15 and December 7, people on Medicare can change how they get it. For 2026 that window runs from Thursday, October 15 to Monday, December 7, and whatever you choose takes effect in January 2027. Most families treat this as junk-mail season. If a parent is starting to need help, it is worth an hour of your attention.
The reason is simple. The plan your mother picked at 65 was probably picked for a healthy person. Now she may be seeing three specialists, or taking a medication that is new this year, or one fall away from a stay in a nursing facility. The plan that fit then may not fit now, and after December 7 you generally cannot change it for a year.
This post is not about which plan is best. We are not insurance agents and we do not sell plans. It is about what to look at, what Minnesota does differently, and one point that surprises almost every family: none of these plans pays for assisted living.
The calendar: fall window, then a smaller winter window
The fall Annual Enrollment Period lets a person move between Original Medicare and a Medicare Advantage plan, switch from one Advantage plan to another, switch or drop a Part D drug plan, or join Part D if they skipped it earlier. Joining late may carry a penalty.
There is a second, smaller window. From January 1 to March 31, 2027, people who are already in a Medicare Advantage plan can make one change: to another Advantage plan, or back to Original Medicare with a drug plan. It is one change only, not a series of tries. The fall window allows several changes, and the last one you make before December 7 is the one that counts.
So if your parent finds the wrong plan in January, there may still be a way out. But a parent who is in the hospital in February with a plan that does not include the right hospital has already had the problem. Fix it in the fall if you can.
Write both dates on the calendar now. Then pull your parent's current plan paperwork. Every Medicare plan sends an annual notice of changes in the fall. It lists what will be different next year in premiums, drug coverage and provider networks. Read it before you do anything else.
What to bring to the table: five things
Before you call anyone, gather five things. First, your parent's red, white and blue Medicare card, or the number from it. Second, the current plan's notice of changes. Third, a list of every medication with the dose. Fourth, a list of every doctor and the hospital your parent actually uses. Fifth, a note on how much your parent spent out of pocket last year.
The hospital question matters more in the Twin Cities than many families expect. The metro is dominated by a few systems: M Health Fairview, Allina Health, HealthPartners, and North Memorial Health. A Medicare Advantage plan has a network. If your father's cardiologist is at Abbott Northwestern and next year's plan does not include it, that is a real change, even if the premium is lower. Our guide to hospital discharge in the Twin Cities explains why the system your parent lands in shapes everything that follows.
Check the drug list the same way. Plans change which drugs they cover and at what tier each year. A drug that cost a small copay in 2026 can move to a higher tier in 2027. Check each medication by name, not just the plan's general reputation.
How Minnesota's Medigap is different
Original Medicare leaves gaps. It has deductibles and coinsurance, and no annual cap on what you pay for covered care. A Medigap policy, also called Medicare supplement insurance, is a private policy that pays some of those costs. In most states, Medigap plans are sold by letter: Plan G, Plan N, and so on. Minnesota is one of the states that standardizes them in a different way.
According to Medicare.gov, Minnesota's standardized options are called Basic and Extended Basic. Both include core benefits for inpatient hospital costs, medical costs, blood, hospice and respite cost sharing, and home health cost sharing. The Medicare.gov chart shows the Basic plan with 100 days of skilled nursing facility care and the Extended Basic plan with 120 days. Insurers can also add optional riders to a Basic policy, such as a Part A deductible rider.
Minnesota also offers its own versions of Plans K, L, M and N, and a high-deductible Plan F for people who had, or were eligible for, Medicare before the federal cutoff date. The Minnesota Department of Commerce lists the same families of options: Basic, Basic with riders, Extended Basic, and Medicare SELECT.
We cannot tell you which one is right. The details of each plan, and what each insurer charges, vary. Two free places can walk you through it: the Senior LinkAge Line at 1-800-333-2433, and the Minnesota Department of Commerce at 651-539-1500. Do not rely on a letter-based chart from a national website. It may not match what is for sale here.
The part that surprises families: Medicare does not pay for assisted living
This is the point to say out loud at the kitchen table. Medicare covers medical care. It does not pay for long-term custodial care, which is help with bathing, dressing, eating and moving around. That holds for Original Medicare and for Medicare Advantage. It also holds for Medigap, which only fills in Medicare's own cost sharing.
What Medicare does cover is a short stay in a skilled nursing facility after a qualifying hospital stay. We wrote a full guide on the 100-day transitional care benefit. The short version: the coverage depends on which plan your parent holds, and the daily cost sharing that begins on day 21 depends on whether a Medigap or Advantage plan pays it. That is a good reason to know which one your parent has before the hospital stay, not during it.
So the question for the fall is not only which plan has the lowest premium. It is: if my parent needs months of care, who pays? The honest answer for most Minnesota families is a mix of private savings, long-term care insurance if there is any, and eventually public programs. Our post on Alternative Care and the Elderly Waiver covers the programs that pay for services at home and in assisted living. Neither covers room and board.
If your parent has very low income: Medical Assistance changes the math
Some Twin Cities seniors qualify for both Medicare and Medical Assistance. These are called dual-eligibles. For them, enrollment choices work differently, and Minnesota has a managed care program built for this group, Minnesota Senior Health Options. We cover one county's version in our MSHO guide. If your parent is dual-eligible, ask about it before choosing a standard Advantage plan.
There is also a rule on the Department of Commerce page that matters for planning. If a person holds a Medigap policy and becomes eligible for Medical Assistance, the policy can be suspended for up to 24 months. If Medical Assistance eligibility ends during that time, the person can return to the policy without underwriting. That is useful if a parent's savings run down faster than expected. Do not cancel a Medigap policy without calling first. Cancelling can be hard to undo.
Medical Assistance also has a five-year look-back at gifts, and an estate recovery program. If your parent is close to needing it, read our explainers on the 60-month look-back before moving any money.
Where to get free, unbiased help
The Senior LinkAge Line, 1-800-333-2433, is Minnesota's State Health Insurance Assistance Program. It is a free service run by the Minnesota Board on Aging with the Area Agencies on Aging. For the Twin Cities that agency is Trellis, which covers all seven metro counties, including Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Anoka and Washington. Counselors do not sell insurance.
Expect longer waits in the weeks after October 15. Call early in the window rather than the first week of December. Have the five items from above in front of you.
For a Medicare question that is really a plan complaint, 1-800-MEDICARE is the federal line. If you suspect a parent is being pressured, tricked or exploited by a plan seller, the Minnesota Adult Abuse Reporting Center takes reports 24 hours a day at 1-844-880-1574. Be careful with unsolicited calls. A legitimate plan or agent does not need your parent's bank details to compare plans.
A short plan for the next seven weeks
Here is a practical order of operations that fits between now and December 7.
In the next week, gather the plan notice, the card, the medication list and the doctor list. In the second week, call the Senior LinkAge Line and book a review. In the third and fourth weeks, check each doctor and each drug against the plans you are considering, and ask each plan in writing what the out-of-pocket maximum is. By early December, decide, enroll, and keep a copy of the confirmation.
Then do one more thing most families skip. Ask your parent whether they have a health care directive, and where it is. The enrollment conversation is a natural opening for it. And if the hospital call has not come yet but you can feel it coming, read our explainer on Minnesota assisted living licensure now, while there is time to think.
There is no published Twin Cities figure we can give you for what a month of assisted living will cost, and no published median for memory care. Anyone who quotes you a metro average is guessing. That is another reason to get the insurance decision right: it is the one piece of the cost picture you can control in the next seven weeks.
