Monticello, Blanding and San Juan County · Medicare Advantage 2027

New 2027 Medicare Advantage Plans in San Juan County, Utah

Most counties in Utah and western Colorado lost Medicare Advantage plans for 2027. San Juan County gained three. If you live in Monticello, Blanding, Bluff or out toward Monument Valley, the shelf you shop from this fall is bigger than the one you shopped last year, and one of the new arrivals sits right next to the county's most popular plan with a lower cap. Here is what came in, where it came from, and who should actually look at it.

Medicare On Main Data Desk

Published October 21, 2026 · 6 min read · Reviewed by Brian Penner, 22+ years in Medicare

Where the three new plans came from

None of the three is brand new. CMS's 2027 plan crosswalk labels each one a "Renewal Plan with SAE," which stands for service area expansion. All three were sold in Grand County, an hour north in Moab, during 2026, and UnitedHealthcare has stretched their map south to take in San Juan County for 2027. The statewide picture is in our county-by-county 2027 post; this one stays in San Juan.

That matters for two reasons. First, these plans have a real year of history: a 2027 Star Rating, a provider directory, and members who have already used them. Second, they sit in the same UnitedHealthcare contract, H4604, as UT-0005, the plan more people in this county use than any other. Same contract does not guarantee the same doctors, so check the network plan by plan, but it does mean you are comparing siblings, not strangers.

San Juan County plans with drug coverage for 2027

These are the plans anyone with Medicare in the county can join that include Part D. Membership is from CMS's September 2026 county enrollment file; the new plans have none yet because they were not sold here.

Sources: CMS CY2026 and CY2027 landscape files, San Juan County, Utah; CMS CPSC enrollment, September 2026 (counts under 11 are hidden). Arrows show 2026 → 2027.

In 2026, a San Juan County resident who wanted a $0 plan with drug coverage had two choices. For 2027 there are four, and the lowest cap among them falls from $5,200 to $4,900.

If you are one of the 124 on UT-0005

This is the comparison I would make first. AARP Medicare Advantage UT-0005 renews automatically, so nobody on it is forced to do anything. But for 2027 its out-of-pocket cap goes from $5,200 to $6,700 and its drug deductible from $440 to $685. The premium stays at $0.

Meanwhile Essentials UT-4 shows up from the same carrier at the same $0 premium with a $4,900 cap and the same $685 drug deductible. On those three numbers alone, UT-4 is $1,800 lower on the worst-case year. A cap is the most you would pay for covered in-network medical care in a year, so the gap only shows up in a bad year: a surgery, a hospital stay in Grand Junction, a run of imaging. In a quiet year you may never get near either number.

Those three numbers are not the whole plan, and I would not switch on them alone. Before moving, line up the two plans' Summaries of Benefits for:

• Copays you actually use. Primary care, specialist visits, the hospital day rate and outpatient surgery. A lower cap sometimes comes with higher copays on the way there.
• Your prescriptions. Look up each one in both plans' 2027 drug lists for tier and any prior authorization.
• Extras. Dental, vision and hearing allowances vary between sibling plans, and UT-7 "Extras" is named for them.
• The network. Covered in the next section, and the one that decides it in a county this size.

An HMO-POS in a county with two small hospitals

All three new plans are HMO-POS. Per Medicare.gov, an HMO keeps you in its network except for emergencies, out-of-area urgent care and temporary out-of-area dialysis, and the point-of-service version may cover some out-of-network services at a higher copay or coinsurance. Which services count is spelled out in each plan's Evidence of Coverage.

Here, that question has a geography to it. San Juan Health in Monticello and Blue Mountain Hospital in Blanding handle a lot of local care. Specialists, cancer treatment and most surgeries mean a drive to Moab, Cortez, Farmington or Grand Junction, and three of those four are across a state line. An HMO network that covers Monticello but not the specialist you see in Colorado can cost you more than any difference in the cap.

I could not find a published list of the Advantage plans either hospital contracts with, and the directory sites I checked contradict each other, so I will not guess. Call each office you use with the plan's name and number, H4604-011 for example, and ask about 2027, not 2026. If a Colorado specialist matters to you, ask that office too. The Humana PPOs pay out of network at a higher cost, which is the usual reason people here pick a PPO over an HMO.

If you get care through the Indian Health Service or a Navajo Nation clinic, that care does not depend on your Medicare plan's network. How the two fit together is on our Medicare and IHS page.

What stayed put on the Humana side

Humana adds nothing new in San Juan County for 2027 and drops nothing. Essentials Plus Giveback, the county's second-largest plan with 117 members, stays $0 with its cap moving from $5,495 to $5,750. The two HumanaChoice PPOs rise from $87 to $97 and $110 a month. Humana's three USAA Honor Giveback plans, which have no drug coverage and are used mainly by veterans with VA prescriptions, keep their caps unchanged.

One detail differs from Moab. HumanaChoice SNP-DE H5216-296, a plan for people with both Medicare and Medicaid, is leaving Grand County for 2027 but stays in San Juan County, where its 22 members see the premium fall from $16.90 to $0. Every other Special Needs Plan here returns as well.

On 2027 Star Ratings, UnitedHealthcare's H4604 contract, which includes all three new plans and UT-0005, holds at 4 stars. Humana's H5216 rises from 3.5 to 4 and its H7617 stays at 4.5.

Drug costs move for everyone. Medicare.gov's Part D costs page sets the 2027 deductible limit at $700, up from $615, and the yearly cap on covered drug spending at $2,400, up from $2,100. Every Humana drug plan in the table sits at the $700 limit, and every UnitedHealthcare one at $685.

When a new Advantage plan is not the answer

Most people in this county are not in an Advantage plan at all. In June 2026, 2,083 of the 2,543 Medicare beneficiaries in San Juan County were on Original Medicare, per CMS enrollment data. Original Medicare has no network, which is a big part of its appeal where the nearest specialist may be in another state. Three new HMO-POS plans do not change that math for someone who sees doctors in Durango or Grand Junction and wants no network question at all.

If you are on Original Medicare with a Medigap policy, a $0 plan can look tempting on the mailer. Leaving Medigap is easy; getting back in Utah usually means answering health questions. Our posts on switching from Medigap to Advantage and switching back to Original Medicare cover both directions before you sign anything.

The dates between now and March

1. Now through December 7: Medicare Open Enrollment. Join one of the new plans, or any other, and it starts January 1, 2027. Joining a new Advantage plan ends your old one automatically.
2. January 1: 2027 benefits take effect, including UT-0005's new cap and every plan's new drug deductible.
3. January 1 to March 31: if you are in an Advantage plan, you get one more switch, to another Advantage plan or back to Original Medicare, per Medicare.gov.

After more than 22 years helping people in rural counties sort this out, the pattern I see in a year like this is simple. When plans leave, people are forced to look. When plans arrive, nobody has to, so the better fit can sit on the shelf unnoticed. A half hour with your Annual Notice of Change and the table above is enough to know whether it applies to you.

How we know all this: the Medicare On Main Data Desk frames every article with public data. Here that means CMS's CY2026 and CY2027 Medicare Advantage landscape files (September 2026 releases) and 2027 plan crosswalk, compared by plan number for San Juan County, Utah; CMS's September 2026 county enrollment file and June 2026 monthly enrollment data; CMS's 2027 Star Ratings; and Medicare.gov's Part D cost, HMO and plan-joining pages, all read October 21, 2026. Carrier and hospital names are factual reporting, not endorsement. Medicare On Main is not affiliated with San Juan Health, Blue Mountain Hospital or the Indian Health Service. This is education, not advice. Confirm your own plan with your Annual Notice of Change or Medicare.gov, and compare plans with a licensed agent. We take no payment from any carrier to feature a plan.