Houston-based Memorial Hermann Health Plan will stop offering its Medicare Advantage plan after December 31, 2026, and members who lose it have until February 28, 2027 to enroll in a replacement. That is almost three months past the December 7 close of general Open Enrollment, which opens October 15. The plan’s closing notice, last updated September 30, leaves members with a handful of dates to sort out and a list of phone numbers to call.
The December 31 end date and the February 28 window: The notice sets both dates but not how a replacement lines up with them. The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit includes the Open Enrollment calendar and a Medigap guaranteed-issue call script.
See the calendar and the Medigap call script for a closing plan →
A closing notice with three dates and no member count
The Memorial Hermann Health Plan closing page states the key facts plainly. Current Medicare Advantage coverage “remains in effect through December 31, 2026,” new plan enrollment begins October 15, and the plan will no longer be available after the end of the year. The notice does not say how many members are enrolled, and it names no spokesperson or executive, so the plan itself is the only voice on the record.
The footprint is small by national standards. Becker’s Payer, in its list of insurers leaving Medicare Advantage in 2027, reports that Memorial Hermann offered plans in six Texas counties, and the article does not name them. Other exits on the same list run far larger, such as Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s 98 Iowa counties, which makes the Houston closing a regional event.
The February 28 window is longer than Open Enrollment
The plan’s notice explains the extension in one sentence: “Because the Memorial Hermann MA Plan will no longer be available after December 31, 2026, affected members also have a special opportunity to enroll in a Medicare health or drug plan through February 28, 2027.” The window covers both Medicare health plans and drug plans, so a member who also relied on the plan for prescription coverage has the same extra time.
General Open Enrollment is shorter. The Medicare.gov joining-a-plan page gives the period as October 15 to December 7 and says coverage then starts January 1, provided the new plan receives the request to join by December 7. A member of the closing plan therefore holds two sets of dates, the standard one and the plan-specific one that stretches to the end of February.
Original Medicare and Medigap as the other exit
A replacement Medicare Advantage plan is not the only route. The notice says members can return to Original Medicare effective January 1, 2027, and that members who are not in a dual-eligible special needs plan may have “guaranteed issue rights to purchase certain Medicare Supplement (Medigap) policies.” The notice’s wording turns on whether a member is in a dual-eligible special needs plan, so the Medigap route is not open to every member on the same terms.
The notice lists the free official contacts: Medicare at 1-800-MEDICARE, the Texas Department of Insurance at 1-800-252-3439, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission at 1-800-964-2777 and Social Security at 1-800-772-1213, alongside Memorial Hermann’s own customer service line at (855) 645-8448. Choosing a new plan or returning to Original Medicare costs nothing to do directly, and no paid help is required.
Coverage ends December 31, while the extra window runs to February 28
Two clocks run against the same member. The plan’s notice tells members to select new coverage before December 31, the day the current coverage ends. Medicare.gov’s Open Enrollment rule says a request must reach the new plan by December 7 for coverage to start January 1. A member who waits for the longer window is relying on the plan’s special enrollment period, and the sources read for this article do not state a coverage start date for an election made inside that window, so the gap, if any, depends on which period the election falls under and the start date it assigns.
The second difficulty is the network. The notice tells members to confirm that preferred doctors and pharmacies participate in the new plan’s network and to ask the new plan about prescription coverage. A replacement from another insurer lists its own doctors and pharmacies, so each of those checks happens plan by plan rather than once.
The free route is the same in every case: 1-800-MEDICARE and the Texas Department of Insurance, both listed in the notice, are the official contacts for questions about timing and options, and enrolling in a replacement plan can be done directly with Medicare or the plan without paid help.
Matching doctors and drugs to a replacement plan
Memorial Hermann Health Plan’s Medicare Advantage coverage ends December 31, and the special enrollment period it describes runs to February 28. The unfinished job for a member is checking that a replacement plan’s doctors, hospitals and pharmacies match the ones already in use, and that the drug list covers the prescriptions in the cabinet.
The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit pairs a provider call script with a prescription-by-plan comparison and a cost calculator spreadsheet for comparing plans on cost, drugs and doctors.
Line up doctors, drugs and a replacement plan before December 31 →
This article was produced with AI assistance and checked against the primary sources linked above.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
