Newsroom · Salt Lake County and the Wasatch Front

Is Cigna Leaving Medicare Advantage in Utah for 2027?

If your Medicare card said Cigna in 2025 and HealthSpring in 2026, your plan is not being offered for 2027. Here is the chain of events, the two Utah plans that end on December 31, and the three doors the letter opens.

Medicare On Main Data Desk

Published October 3, 2026 · 8 min read · Reviewed by Brian Penner

Yes — in every way that matters to a member, Cigna has left Medicare Advantage in Utah. The name on your card changed a year ago, and now the plan itself is going away. The sequence confuses people, because the company that is leaving is not the company you enrolled with, and the letter you are about to get will come from a name you may never have chosen. So let's lay it out in order, show you exactly what the official CMS file says for your county, and then get to the only question that counts: what you do between now and December 7.

What happened to Cigna's Medicare plans?

Three things, in sequence:

1. January 2024: Cigna agreed to sell its Medicare business to HCSC, the parent of several Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans. The sale closed on March 20, 2025 for $3.7 billion, and it included Cigna's Medicare Advantage plans, its Part D drug plans and its Medigap supplement policies (Healthcare Dive).
2. Fall 2025: HCSC sold the former Cigna Medicare Advantage plans for the 2026 plan year under a revived brand name, HealthSpring, and mailed members new ID cards (HCSC newsroom). The contract and plan numbers did not change — H0439-024 and H7849-029 were Cigna plans in 2025 and HealthSpring plans in 2026.
3. September 2026: CMS published the 2027 plan landscape. Trade press reports HCSC is pulling HealthSpring Advantage plans out of several states for 2027 (Modern Healthcare). The CMS file is what confirms Utah: no HealthSpring MA, MA-PD or Special Needs Plan row in any Utah county.

The practical upshot: if you have been on "Cigna" since before 2025, you have been on a HealthSpring plan since January, and that HealthSpring plan is not renewing. Carrier names are mentioned here for factual reporting only; this is not a criticism of either company, and plans leaving and entering counties each fall is a normal feature of the Medicare Advantage market.

Which Utah plans are ending?

From the CMS CY2026 landscape file, HealthSpring sold exactly two general Medicare Advantage plans in Utah. Neither appears in the CY2027 file — not in Utah, not in any other state.

Source: CMS CY2027 Medicare Advantage / Part D Landscape, compared against the CY2026 file by Contract Plan ID (October 1, 2026). Overall Star Ratings for 2027 are not yet published.

Note what this table does not say. HealthSpring's Premier plan had the lowest in-network cap in Salt Lake County in 2026 at $3,500; for 2027 the county's lowest cap is $4,700. If you chose Premier for that number, do not assume the cheapest-premium plan on the 2027 shelf protects you the same way — the 2027 Salt Lake County post lists every plan's cap next to its premium.

What does Salt Lake County look like without it?

Sources: CMS CY2026 and CY2027 landscape files (general MA-PD rows, Salt Lake County) · CMS 2027 state fact sheets (Utah: 490,235 people with Medicare; average MA premium $9.59 → $9.16).

The carriers still on the Salt Lake County shelf for 2027 are Aetna Medicare, Devoted Health, Humana, Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Utah, Select Health, UnitedHealthcare. That is a deep bench by Utah standards — Grand and San Juan counties have two — so a HealthSpring member in Sandy or West Valley has real choices. The harder part is that HealthSpring was not the only exit on this shelf: Select Health Medicare + Kroger, Regence Valiance and the old Humana Value Choice H5216-456 are also absent for 2027, so neighbors on different plans may all be holding letters this week. The full Utah discontinued list covers all 28 counties.

Box Elder, Morgan and Tooele counties feel it more. Box Elder drops from five carriers to two for 2027 (Humana and UnitedHealthcare); Morgan goes from seven to three and Tooele from six to three. If you are in one of those counties, the Medigap door below deserves a longer look than it would in Salt Lake.

What about the HealthSpring drug plan and Cigna Medigap?

Two things carry the name forward, and both cause confusion:

• HealthSpring Assurance Rx (PDP) is in the 2027 file for Utah at $94.80 a month. It is a stand-alone Part D plan — drug coverage only, meant to sit beside Original Medicare or a Medigap policy. It is not a Medicare Advantage plan and it does not continue your medical coverage. Some members will see the familiar name on Medicare.gov and assume their plan survived. It did not.
• Cigna-branded Medigap policies also moved to HCSC in the 2025 sale. A Medigap policy is guaranteed renewable as long as you pay the premium, and nothing about an Advantage plan's non-renewal touches it. If you own one, keep paying it. If you are an Advantage member who is now thinking about Medigap, see the next section — the exit itself gives you the right to buy one.

The letter: what it is and what it is not

Federal rules require a plan that is not renewing to notify each member by mail at least 90 calendar days before the plan ends (42 CFR § 422.506); for a December 31 end that puts the notice at October 2. Medicare.gov describes the same letter: if your plan is leaving the Medicare program, you'll get a notice and you need to choose new coverage (Medicare.gov). It is a separate envelope from the Annual Notice of Change, which was due by September 30 from every plan.

The letter does not mean you are losing Medicare. Parts A and B are untouched. It does not mean your doctors are leaving — Intermountain, University of Utah Health and the independent clinics along the Wasatch Front contract with many plans. And it does not mean you have to call anyone to cancel: the plan ends on its own on December 31.

Your three doors

1. Another Medicare Advantage plan from the 6 carriers still in your county, chosen during the October 15 – December 7 Annual Enrollment Period so it starts January 1 (Medicare.gov). Compare on your doctors and your drug list first, then the in-network cap, then the premium.
2. Original Medicare plus a Medigap policy plus a stand-alone drug plan. This is the door the exit opens that nothing else does: per Medicare.gov, when your plan leaves Medicare and you return to Original Medicare you may buy Medigap Plan A, B, D, G, K or L with no health questions, applying as early as 60 days before and no later than 63 days after your coverage ends — November 1, 2026 through March 4, 2027. Plans C and F are limited to people who were Medicare-eligible before 2020. Utah has 8 stand-alone drug plans for 2027.
3. Original Medicare plus a drug plan, no Medigap. Lowest premium, no network, but no annual cap on your 20% share. Reasonable for some; a risk most people in their 70s and 80s should price before accepting.

If you miss December 7, a discontinued plan also gives you a Special Enrollment Period from December 8 through February 28 to pick another Advantage plan (42 CFR § 422.62) — but a plan chosen in January starts February 1, and you would spend January in Original Medicare with no drug coverage. Treat the SEP as a safety net, not a plan.

The calendar from here

What I would do this week

1. Find both letters. The ANOC (by September 30) and the non-renewal notice (dated October 2). Put the non-renewal letter somewhere you can find it in February — it is the proof of your Medigap right.
2. Write down every doctor and every prescription, with the pharmacy you use. Nothing else about plan comparison matters until that list exists.
3. Decide which door before you shop plans. Advantage versus Medigap is a bigger decision than which Advantage plan; if you are leaning Medigap, the window opens November 1 and there is no reason to wait for December.
4. Ignore the phone calls. A plan ending is a magnet for marketing. No legitimate agent needs your Medicare number to "verify" anything, and nobody can enroll you in a 2027 plan before October 15.
5. Enroll between October 15 and December 7. Earlier is fine; CMS says the last enrollment request wins, so you can change your mind inside the window.

How we know all this: the Medicare On Main Data Desk frames every article with public data — here, the CMS CY2026 and CY2027 landscape files compared by Contract Plan ID, CMS's September 28, 2026 Utah fact sheet, Healthcare Dive's and HCSC's own accounts of the Cigna sale and HealthSpring rebrand, Modern Healthcare's reporting on HCSC's 2027 exits, and the federal rules and Medicare.gov pages on non-renewal notices, enrollment periods and Medigap guaranteed-issue rights. Mentioning a carrier is not an endorsement or a criticism; plan availability is a fact of the market. This is education, not advice; confirm your plan, costs and eligibility with a licensed agent or Medicare.gov. We take no payment from any carrier to feature a plan.