Newsroom · Salt Lake County and the Wasatch Front

PPO Medicare Advantage Plans in Salt Lake County for 2027

HealthSpring True Choice (PPO) is gone, so the PPO question is live for thousands of Wasatch Front households this month. Here are all 16 Salt Lake County PPO drug plans in the CMS 2027 file, each beside its own 2026 numbers, the three PPOs that ended, what a PPO actually buys you over an HMO, and the Medigap door that is open until March 4.

Medicare On Main Data Desk

Published October 4, 2026 · 10 min read · Reviewed by Brian Penner

If you are reading this because a letter told you True Choice is ending, the first thing to know is that "PPO" was only part of what you had. You had a PPO with a low cap and a low drug deductible at no premium, and that combination is the thing that does not exist on the 2027 shelf. So the useful question is not "which PPO replaces mine?" but "which of those three features was I actually using?" This article lays out every Salt Lake County PPO with drug coverage for 2027 next to its 2026 numbers, so you can see the trade-offs without a sales pitch, and then shows the same shelf in the six other counties where True Choice was sold. The Cigna-to-HealthSpring history, the October 2 letter and the stand-alone drug plan that is not a replacement are in the HealthSpring exit post; this one is about what comes next.

What a PPO buys you, in Medicare.gov's words

Medicare.gov's description of a Preferred Provider Organization plan is short: "You can generally go to out-of-network providers for covered services, but you'll usually pay more." You do not have to choose a primary care doctor, and you do not have to get a referral to see a specialist (Medicare.gov). An HMO, by contrast, generally covers only in-network care outside of emergencies, and most require a primary care doctor and referrals (Medicare.gov). Two things people miss: a PPO's out-of-network cost sharing counts toward a separate, higher combined limit that is not in the CMS file, so the cap in the table below is the in-network cap only; and if you join a PPO without drug coverage, "you can't join a separate Medicare drug plan," so the four medical-only PPOs at the bottom are for people with VA, TRICARE For Life or retiree drug coverage.

The 2027 Salt Lake County PPO shelf: all 16 plans

PPO plans with drug coverage, sorted by carrier. Premium is the consolidated Part C plus Part D monthly premium, on top of Part B. Cap is the in-network maximum out-of-pocket. The 2026 column shows the same plan's 2026 premium, cap, drug deductible and overall Star Rating; 2027 ratings are blank in the file until CMS publishes them this month. The 2027 federal Part D deductible limit is $700 and the yearly cap on covered drug costs is $2,400 (Medicare.gov).

Source: CMS CY2027 Medicare Advantage / Part D Landscape, compared against the CY2026 file by Contract Plan ID on October 4, 2026. Plan names and figures are reproduced from the public file for information; nothing here is a recommendation of, or a judgment about, any company or plan. Medicare On Main does not offer every plan available in your area.

Read the table by column, not by row. The cap column is the one that moved: Aetna Elite $5,500 to $6,500, Devoted Choice $5,500 to $6,350, Humana Essentials Plus $5,495 to $5,750, Regence Classic $6,200 to $6,700, and UnitedHealthcare's UT-0008 $6,700 to $7,150. Only two continuing PPOs lowered a cap: Humana Value Choice H7617-032, from $5,800 to $5,000, and UnitedHealthcare's Giveback plan, from $8,900 to $7,150; the new Humana Value Choice H5216-471 also sits at $5,000. The drug deductible column mostly went to the $700 federal maximum; the exceptions worth circling are UnitedHealthcare Giveback at $215, Regence Enhanced at $310, Devoted Giveback at $461, Aetna Value Plus at $500 and Regence Classic at $590. And the premium column went both ways: Aetna Value Plus fell from $37.60 to $6.50 while its cap rose $1,000; Regence Classic nearly doubled to $87; Humana's two HumanaChoice plans, which were twins at $87 in 2026, split to $97 and $110.

The PPOs that are discontinued for 2027

True Choice members were not crosswalked anywhere, because HealthSpring has no Medicare Advantage plan in Utah to move you into; your letter is a non-renewal, and the doors below are open. Humana Value Choice H5216-456 members are in a different spot. Federal rules allow a carrier to move members between plans of the same type under the same contract (42 CFR § 422.530), and a Humana Value Choice (PPO) under H5216-471 appears for 2027 at $0 with a lower $5,000 cap and a higher $700 deductible. Whether you were moved into it is on your Annual Notice of Change; if instead you got a non-renewal notice, you were not. How to tell the two letters apart.

For a True Choice member: the three features, priced separately

True Choice at $0, $5,300 and $200 was unusual on both ends. Here is what each of its three features costs to keep in 2027, using only the file:

• If the low cap was the point — you have had a hospital year, or you plan for one — the two Humana Value Choice PPOs at $5,000 are the lowest PPO caps in the county, at $0, and the HMO side goes lower: Humana Total Complete (HMO) is $0 with a $4,700 cap and a $300 drug deductible, and two UnitedHealthcare HMO-POS plans sit at $4,900. The price of that lower cap is a network you must stay inside.
• If the low drug deductible was the point — several brand-name prescriptions — the PPOs under $500 are UnitedHealthcare Giveback at $215 (cap $7,150, $0), Regence Enhanced at $310 (cap $5,500, $158 a month) and Devoted Giveback at $461 (cap $9,850, $0). Price your actual drugs under each; a deductible only matters on tiers it applies to, and many plans exempt the generic tiers.
• If the out-of-network option was the point — a specialist at a hospital outside the network, or part of the year in Arizona — then any of the 16 keeps it, and the question becomes which network has your doctors in it, so the out-of-network cost sharing is the exception and not the rule. How Utah's hospital systems line up with plan networks.

And if the answer to all three is "not really, it was just a good $0 plan," the fourth option is the one most people skip: Original Medicare plus a Medigap policy plus one of Utah's 8 stand-alone drug plans. It has no network at all, no referrals, and no annual cap to track, in exchange for a monthly Medigap premium. A discontinued plan is one of the few events that lets you buy it without health questions.

The same shelf in the other six True Choice counties

Source: CMS CY2026 and CY2027 landscape files, general MA-PD rows with plan type PPO (Special Needs Plans and medical-only plans counted separately).

Davis and Utah counties see the whole Salt Lake PPO list, and Utah County actually gained two PPOs because Devoted Health arrived in Provo. Weber keeps a 13-plan PPO shelf without Aetna. The story turns in Tooele, Morgan and Box Elder, where True Choice was one of the PPOs that left along with Aetna and Regence: Box Elder is down to five PPOs from two carriers, Humana and UnitedHealthcare, and only one of Humana's $0 PPOs, Essentials Plus Giveback, is sold there. In those three counties the Original Medicare and Medigap door deserves a real look rather than a glance; the Weber and Davis post and the Utah County post list every plan, PPO and HMO, with its own 2026 numbers.

Sources: CMS landscape files · CMS Medicare Monthly Enrollment (Salt Lake County, June 2026: 166,854 people with Medicare, 96,718 in Medicare Advantage or other plans).

Medical-only PPOs: for VA, TRICARE and retiree drug coverage

Four Salt Lake County PPOs for 2027 carry no Part D benefit: Aetna Medicare Eagle (PPO) with a $6,500 cap and three Humana USAA Honor Giveback (PPO) plans with caps of $5,100, $9,150 and $9,150. Regence Valiance (PPO), the medical-only plan with the county's lowest 2026 cap of $4,500, is not in the 2027 file. These plans exist for people whose prescriptions come from the VA, TRICARE For Life or an employer retiree plan, and Medicare.gov's warning applies: join one and you cannot add a stand-alone drug plan. If that is you, the TRICARE For Life post covers how the pieces fit.

If your PPO ended: your three doors

1. Another Medicare Advantage plan — PPO or HMO, from any carrier in your county — chosen during the October 15 to December 7 Annual Enrollment Period so it starts January 1 (Medicare.gov). Doctors first, drug list second, cap third, premium last. How to compare two plans without a spreadsheet.
2. Original Medicare plus a Medigap policy plus a stand-alone drug plan. Per Medicare.gov, when your plan leaves Medicare or stops serving your area 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's 8 stand-alone drug plans for 2027 are listed here; the HealthSpring Assurance Rx plan at $94.80 is one of them, and it is a drug plan only, not a replacement for True Choice.
3. Original Medicare plus a drug plan, no Medigap. Lowest premium, no network, but no annual cap on your 20% share. Reasonable for some; most people in their 70s and 80s should price it before accepting it.

Miss December 7 and a discontinued plan still 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, leaving 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. Decide which True Choice feature you were using. Low cap, low drug deductible, or out-of-network access. Most people can answer in a sentence, and the answer cuts the 16-plan list to three or four.
2. Write down every doctor, every prescription and your pharmacy. Then check the three or four plans against that list, in that order. The premium comes last.
3. Price the Medigap door honestly. A Plan G premium every month against a $0 PPO with a $5,000 to $7,150 cap is a real comparison, not a foregone conclusion either way. Plan G versus Plan N in Utah.
4. Leaning toward Medigap? The window opens November 1. There is no reason to wait for December, and no reason to let anyone rush you before November either.
5. 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. Medicare does not call you at home.

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 on October 4, 2026, CMS's county enrollment data, and the Medicare.gov pages and federal rules on PPO and HMO plans, Part D costs, non-renewal notices, plan crosswalks, enrollment periods and Medigap guaranteed-issue rights. The caps shown are in-network; PPO out-of-network cost sharing is subject to a separate combined limit not in the file. We do not know which Humana Value Choice members were crosswalked; only your letter does. 2027 Star Ratings are not yet published and none are stated. Medicare On Main is a licensed independent insurance agency. We do not offer every plan available in your area. Any information we provide is limited to the plans we do offer in your area. Please contact Medicare.gov or 1-800-MEDICARE to get information on all of your options. Not connected with or endorsed by the U.S. government or the federal Medicare program. 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.