Medicare Plans in Tennessee: Coverage and Costs (2026)

If you're turning 65 in Tennessee or helping a parent sort out Medicare, you're facing four parts, dozens of plan choices, and costs that reset every January. The standard Part B premium for 2026 is $202.90 a month, the Part D donut hole is gone for good, and every one of Tennessee's 1,496,872 Medicare beneficiaries has access to a Medicare Advantage plan. 132 are available across the state for 2026, and the lowest monthly premium among them is $0.1,2

This guide walks through every piece of Medicare as it works for Tennesseans in 2026, what it costs, the plan choices in this state, and how to get free help paying for it.

In This Guide

• Key Takeaways
• Original Medicare: Parts A and B
• Medicare Advantage Plans in Tennessee (Part C)
• Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plans in Tennessee
• Medigap in Tennessee
• Help Paying for Medicare in Tennessee
• If You Have Both Medicare and TennCare
• Medicare Enrollment Periods
• Free Medicare Help: Tennessee SHIP
• Frequently Asked Questions

About these numbers: The premiums and deductibles below come from CMS for calendar year 2026, effective January 1. Medicare costs change every year. For the most current figures, check Medicare's own cost page or call Tennessee SHIP at 1-877-801-0044.6

Original Medicare: Parts A and B

Original Medicare is run directly by the federal government, and it comes in two parts.

Part A (Hospital Insurance)

Part A covers inpatient hospital stays, limited skilled nursing facility care, hospice, and some home health care.1

The hospital deductible went up $60 from 2025, to $1,736 per benefit period.1 A benefit period starts the day you're admitted and ends once you've gone 60 days in a row without inpatient hospital care or skilled care in a nursing facility.1 Get readmitted after that, and the deductible applies again.

Part B (Medical Insurance)

Part B covers doctor visits, outpatient care, preventive services, durable medical equipment, and mental health care. Part B doesn't cover routine dental, vision, or hearing.7 Most Medicare Advantage plans offer routine dental, vision, and hearing benefits instead, so check what a specific plan actually covers before you count on it.8

• Monthly premium: $202.90 (higher if your income is above $109,000 single or $218,000 married, under the income-related adjustment)1
• Annual deductible: $283
• After the deductible: you pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount for most services

Part B is technically optional, but nearly everyone signs up. Delay past your enrollment window without qualifying for a Special Enrollment Period or a Medicare Savings Program and you'll owe a late penalty of 10% for every 12 months you could have had it, for as long as you keep Part B.9 Creditable coverage is a Part D term and does not excuse a late Part B enrollment.9

Medicare Advantage Plans in Tennessee (Part C)

Medicare Advantage plans are an alternative to Original Medicare, sold by private insurers. They cover everything Parts A and B do, and most bundle in Part D drug coverage along with extras like dental, vision, and hearing.8

Tennessee has a broad market for these plans. Every one of the state's 1,496,872 Medicare beneficiaries has access to at least one Medicare Advantage plan, and 132 plans are available for 2026, one more than the 131 offered in 2025. The average monthly plan premium in Tennessee came down from $16.89 in 2025 to $12.83 in 2026, and the lowest monthly premium in the state is $0.2 Nationally, the average beneficiary can choose from about 32 Medicare Advantage plans with drug coverage for 2026.10

What's on Offer Depends on Your County

That statewide count of 132 plans is not a menu any one person gets to order from. Plan availability, premiums, networks, and extra benefits are set county by county, so two people in different parts of Tennessee can pull up the same tool and see very different options. What the statewide picture does tell you is that coverage reaches everyone: 100% of people with Medicare in Tennessee have a Medicare Advantage plan available to them, and somewhere in the state the monthly premium goes as low as $0.2 Whether a $0 plan is offered in your county, and whether it covers your doctors, is a question only your ZIP code can answer.

How These Plans Work

• You keep paying your Part B premium ($202.90) on top of any plan premium, though many plans charge $0 extra. CMS notes that some plans may have a $0 premium and may help pay all or part of your Part B premium, so check that on the plan's benefit summary.1,8
• Plans run on networks (HMO or PPO). Confirm your doctors and hospitals are in-network before you enroll, since rural Tennessee networks can be thinner than metro ones.
• Every plan caps your annual out-of-pocket spending. Original Medicare has no such cap of its own, and CMS's full sentence is that there is no yearly limit on what you pay out of pocket unless you have supplemental coverage such as Medigap, Medicaid, employer, retiree, or union coverage.8
• Extras vary widely. Compare the dental, vision, hearing, and transportation benefits, not just the premium.

Use the Medicare Plan Finder at medicare.gov to compare plans by ZIP code. Enter your doctors and prescriptions and it shows which plans cover them and your estimated cost.

Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plans in Tennessee

Part D covers outpatient prescription drugs. You can get it as a standalone plan paired with Original Medicare, or built into a Medicare Advantage plan. In Tennessee, 12 stand-alone Part D plans are available for 2026, and 24.24% of the Tennesseans in one of them get Extra Help paying for it.2

The Inflation Reduction Act eliminated the old coverage gap, the donut hole, so that higher-cost middle stage is gone.3 Part D now moves through three phases:

1. Deductible: you pay full price until you meet your plan's deductible (up to $615 in 2026).11
2. Initial coverage: you pay copays or coinsurance while your plan and drug makers cover the rest.
3. Catastrophic: once your out-of-pocket spending reaches $2,100, you pay $0 for covered drugs the rest of the year.

That $2,100 cap is the number that matters most in Part D.3 It was $2,000 in 2025 and rose to $2,100 as specified in the CY 2026 Rate Announcement. The 2026 national base beneficiary premium is $38.99 a month, though actual plan premiums vary.3 People who qualify for Extra Help often pay much less, sometimes nothing.

Medigap in Tennessee

Medigap policies are sold by private insurers to fill the gaps in Original Medicare: the deductibles, coinsurance, and copays. They work with Original Medicare, and a Medigap policy can't pay a Medicare Advantage plan's copays, coinsurance, deductibles, or premiums.

Tennessee offers the federally standardized plans, labeled A, B, C, D, F, G, K, L, M, and N. Plans C and F are closed to anyone who became Medicare-eligible on or after January 1, 2020.12 Plan G is the popular choice for people newly eligible: it covers the Part A deductible, Part A and Part B coinsurance, and skilled nursing coinsurance, leaving only the $283 Part B deductible on you.1

Your strongest opening is the federal Medigap Open Enrollment Period, the six months that begin when you're 65 and enrolled in Part B. During that window an insurer has to sell you any plan at the standard rate regardless of your health.4

Your One Guaranteed Window in Tennessee

Worth being clear about, because readers often hear otherwise. During the federal six-month window an insurer cannot refuse to sell you any Medigap policy it offers, cannot use medical underwriting to accept or deny you, and cannot charge more because of pre-existing health problems.4 Once that window closes there is no federal guarantee that an insurance company will sell you a Medigap policy at all, and if one will, it may cost more because of past or present health problems.4 Some states add an annual switching window on top of the federal floor; we could not document one for Tennessee, so check with the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance about what rights state law gives you before you assume either way. So choose carefully during your initial window, and weigh Plan G or Plan N before you're locked in.

All standardized Medigap policies are automatically renewed every year, even if you have health problems, as long as you keep paying the premiums, so an insurer cannot drop you for getting sick once you are covered.4 Medigap carriers selling in Tennessee are regulated and licensed by the Tennessee Department of Commerce & Insurance.4

Medigap or Medicare Advantage?

While you're in a Medicare Advantage plan it's illegal for anyone to sell you a Medigap policy unless you're switching back to Original Medicare. Choose Medigap and you stay on Original Medicare with the freedom to see any provider who takes Medicare nationwide, at a higher monthly premium. Choose Medicare Advantage and you trade some of that freedom for a network and a lower upfront cost. Either way the Medigap decision carries weight, because once your six-month window closes there is no federal guarantee an insurer will sell you a policy, and switching later usually means passing a health screening.4

Help Paying for Medicare in Tennessee

If you're on a fixed income, two programs can cut your Medicare costs sharply.

Medicare Savings Programs

Tennessee runs its Medicare Savings Programs through TennCare, the state's Medicaid program. They pay some or all of your Medicare premiums and cost-sharing based on income.5

Those figures already include the $20 of monthly income the program disregards, a general deduction TennCare subtracts before it measures you against the poverty level, so apply anyway if your income sits just above a number in the table.5

QMB is the most generous, covering your Part B premium and your deductibles and coinsurance, which can be thousands of dollars in savings a year. Tennessee applies the federal asset test for these programs: $9,950 for one person and $14,910 for a couple in 2026, per the Social Security Administration's POMS rules.5 Those resource figures are the federal standard, not an absolute cutoff: states can effectively raise both the income and the resource limits by disregarding certain income and resources, and Social Security instructs its staff to encourage people to apply even when income or resources look somewhat high.5 The income limits above are the poverty-level bands TennCare applies, so confirm the current figures with TennCare or Tennessee SHIP before you rule yourself in or out. Qualifying for QMB, SLMB, or QI also enrolls you automatically in Extra Help for Part D; QDWI, the fourth savings program, does not.5

Extra Help for Part D

Extra Help, also called the Low-Income Subsidy, pays Part D premiums, deductibles, and copays for people with limited income and resources. Under Extra Help the plan premium and the plan deductible are both $0, but the premium half comes with a condition worth knowing before you choose a plan: Medicare pays the premium subsidy against your service area's regional benchmark premium, so if you pick a plan that costs more than the benchmark, you owe the difference yourself.13

• Income limits: $23,940 a year for an individual, $32,460 for a married couple, which is 150% of the 2026 federal poverty guidelines. Not every dollar counts toward that test, so apply rather than rule yourself out on income alone13
• Resource limits: $16,590 for an individual, $33,100 for a married couple, or $18,090 and $36,100 if you tell Social Security you expect to use some of your resources for burial expenses13
• If you qualify for QMB, SLMB, or QI, you're automatically enrolled in Extra Help5

Apply through the Social Security Administration at ssa.gov/medicare/part-d-extra-help or call 1-800-772-1213.13

If You Have Both Medicare and TennCare

Many people who have Medicare also qualify for Medicaid. In Tennessee, the state aligns Medicare Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans (D-SNPs) with TennCare CHOICES, the program that runs long-term services and supports for TennCare members.14 A D-SNP coordinates your Medicare and TennCare benefits, your doctors, your drugs, and any long-term care, through one plan with one set of member materials.

Tennessee's D-SNPs come from BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee (the BlueCare Plus plans), UnitedHealthcare (the UHC Dual Complete plans), and Wellpoint (formerly Amerigroup), the same three companies that run the TennCare health plans.14 Having your D-SNP run by the same company that manages your TennCare coverage used to be simply the best-coordinated option. It is now a requirement with a deadline.

If your needs are more intensive and you'd otherwise need nursing-home care, the PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) program is another fully integrated option, though in Tennessee it is limited to people who live in Hamilton County, are 55 or older, and meet a nursing facility level of care.14 For the full picture, see our guides to TennCare CHOICES and Tennessee's BlueCare Plus FIDE D-SNP.

Medicare Enrollment Periods

Miss a deadline and you can face coverage gaps or permanent penalties. The key dates:15

Changes you make during Annual Open Enrollment take effect the following January 1.15 That's when most people review their plan and switch.

Free Medicare Help: Tennessee SHIP

You don't have to figure this out by yourself, and you don't have to pay a broker to help. Tennessee's State Health Insurance Assistance Program, or SHIP, gives free, unbiased Medicare counseling. It's run by the Tennessee Department of Disability and Aging and it doesn't promote any insurance company.6

A SHIP counselor can help you:

• Understand your Medicare options and what each part covers
• Compare Medicare Advantage, Part D, and Medigap plans side by side
• Apply for Medicare Savings Programs and Extra Help
• Sort out billing problems, denials, and appeals
• Work out how Medicare fits with TennCare if you have both

Call 1-877-801-0044 or email dda.ship@tn.gov to get connected with a counselor near you.6

Key Tennessee Medicare Contacts

Learn More

Find personalized help comparing your Medicare options in Tennessee at brevy.com.

The information on Brevy.com is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional legal, financial, or medical advice. Rules vary by state and program and change frequently. Always verify with the relevant agency or a qualified professional. Brevy is not a law firm, financial advisor, or healthcare provider.