{"id":41,"date":"2026-08-31T12:53:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T12:53:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trusthaveninsurance.com\/blog\/?p=41"},"modified":"2026-08-31T12:53:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T12:53:51","slug":"is-your-doctor-or-hospital-leaving-your-medicare-advantage-network-heres-what-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trusthaveninsurance.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/is-your-doctor-or-hospital-leaving-your-medicare-advantage-network-heres-what-to-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Doctor or Hospital Leaving Your Medicare Advantage Network? Here&#8217;s What to Do"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you&#8217;ve gotten a letter from your hospital system or doctor&#8217;s office about a contract ending with your insurance company, you&#8217;re not imagining it \u2014 this is happening across the country right now, and right here in Southwest Florida. Lee Health has notified patients that its hospitals and physicians will go out-of-network for UnitedHealthcare plans, including UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plans, starting January 1, 2027. If you&#8217;re on one of those plans, here&#8217;s what that actually means for you and what to do about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>First: Know What Kind of Change This Is<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not all network changes are the same, and the difference matters a lot for your options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Your whole plan is being discontinued<\/strong> by the insurance company. This is called a non-renewal, and it comes with a federally required notice and a Special Enrollment Period that gives you extra time and flexibility to pick a new plan.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Your doctor or hospital is leaving the network<\/strong>, but your plan itself still exists. This is what&#8217;s happening with Lee Health and UnitedHealthcare. It does <em>not<\/em> automatically give you a Special Enrollment Period \u2014 in most cases, you&#8217;ll need to wait for the Annual Enrollment Period (October 15\u2013December 7) or the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period (January 1\u2013March 31) to make a change.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Knowing which situation you&#8217;re in tells you how much time you actually have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Your Checklist<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Read the notice from your provider or plan closely \u2014 confirm the exact effective date (for Lee Health\/UnitedHealthcare, that&#8217;s January 1, 2027)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Call your doctor&#8217;s or hospital&#8217;s billing office to double-check how it affects your specific coverage<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you&#8217;re in active treatment, ask your plan about continuity-of-care protections that may let you keep seeing your provider at in-network rates for a limited time<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Mark October 15\u2013December 7 on your calendar \u2014 that&#8217;s Annual Enrollment, and it&#8217;s your best window to make a change with the most options available<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>During that window, compare three paths: staying on your current plan and switching providers, moving to a different Medicare Advantage plan that keeps your doctor or hospital in-network, or moving to Original Medicare with a Medigap supplement (which isn&#8217;t tied to a network at all)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Don&#8217;t wait until January to start \u2014 plans and appointment slots fill up fast once Annual Enrollment ends<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The Three Mistakes I See Most Often<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Assuming a network change automatically qualifies them for a Special Enrollment Period \u2014 it usually doesn&#8217;t unless the entire plan is being discontinued<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Waiting until after January 1 to deal with it, and missing the Annual Enrollment window when they had the most choices<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Not considering Medigap, which sidesteps the whole network question because it isn&#8217;t tied to a provider list at all<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Network changes like this are confusing on purpose \u2014 the letters are full of legal language and short on plain answers. I&#8217;m walking Southwest Florida clients through exactly this right now, including the Lee Health\/UnitedHealthcare situation, at no cost to you. No pressure, just education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>[Get My Free Consultation \u2192]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Jessie A. Navalta, Owner\/Broker, TrustHaven Insurance Agency<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;ve gotten a letter from your hospital system or doctor&#8217;s office about a contract ending with your insurance company, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trusthaveninsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trusthaveninsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trusthaveninsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trusthaveninsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trusthaveninsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trusthaveninsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42,"href":"https:\/\/trusthaveninsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trusthaveninsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trusthaveninsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trusthaveninsurance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}