More than 64,000 people covered by Providence Health Plan’s Medicare Advantage business just found out their coverage isn’t making it to next year. For months, Providence had been working out a deal with a national insurer that would take over the Medicare Advantage line and let members keep the coverage they already had. That deal fell apart in August, and now every one of those members needs a new plan for 2027.
If you’re one of those 64,000 people, especially if you’ve had the same doctors for years, that news lands hard. It’s a normal reaction to something you didn’t choose and didn’t cause.
It’s also not just Providence. Insurers all over the country are quietly walking away from Medicare Advantage plans, and this is just the biggest name to do it this year.
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What actually happened to Providence’s Medicare Advantage plan
Providence Health Plan announced in May that it would wind down most of its insurance business by 2027, including its commercial and Medicaid lines. At the time, the company said it was negotiating with an unnamed national carrier that would take over the Medicare Advantage plan, branded Providence Health Assurance, and keep it running under new ownership. That would have let current members stay in the same plan, just under different management.
Those negotiations broke down in August. Providence has confirmed the two sides couldn’t reach an agreement despite months of trying, and the company is now talking with state and federal regulators about winding the plan down completely.
Nothing changes for current members right away. Providence has said coverage will continue without interruption through the rest of 2026, and the plan will keep paying claims and honoring provider contracts during that time.
How many people this actually touches
The Medicare Advantage side of this shutdown affects more than 64,000 people, most of them in Oregon, Washington, California and Montana. That’s just one piece of a much bigger wind-down. Providence’s broader exit from health insurance also affects more than 260,000 people with commercial coverage and another 58,000 on Medicaid, out of an estimated 660,000 members across all of its plans.
The commercial and Medicaid members already have a landing spot. Medicaid enrollees will keep their coverage through Health Share of Oregon, and commercial members will get information from their employer or agent as 2027 gets closer. Medicare Advantage members are the ones facing the most uncertainty, since the insurer that was supposed to take over their coverage never signed on. That uncertainty is bigger than usual, too, because Providence’s own hospitals and clinics, more than 50 of them across the West, aren’t going anywhere. Only the insurance side is closing, which means members will need to check that whatever plan they pick next still covers the doctors they already see.
This isn’t just a Providence problem
Providence isn’t the only insurer walking away from Medicare Advantage this year. Humana has told investors it plans to exit plans covering roughly 600,000 members for 2027, on top of pulling back from three states the year before. Albuquerque-based Presbyterian Health Plan is dropping most of its Medicare Advantage business too, and that affects about 30,000 people, while Clear Spring Health’s exit from three states this summer affected another 12,000.
Research published earlier this year found that nearly 2.9 million Medicare Advantage members, about 10% of everyone enrolled, had to find a new plan heading into 2026 because their old one disappeared, and Vermont lost 92% of its Medicare Advantage coverage in a single year.
Behind most of these exits is the same problem. Medical costs are rising faster than what insurers get paid to cover them, and regional nonprofit plans have taken the hardest hit, with 72% reporting an operating loss in 2025, up from 57% just two years earlier.
What to do before the end of the year
If you’re on a Providence Medicare Advantage plan, you don’t need to do anything right now. Your coverage stays in place through December 31, 2026, and Providence has said it will honor its contracts and keep paying claims during that time.
What you do need to watch for is the Medicare Open Enrollment Period, which runs from October 15 through December 7 every year. That’s your window to pick a new Medicare Advantage plan or switch to Original Medicare for 2027, and it applies whether or not your current plan is going away.
If you miss that window, there’s a backup. Federal rules give anyone whose Medicare Advantage plan isn’t renewed a special enrollment period that runs from December 8 through the last day of February to pick a new plan. If you don’t choose anything during either window, you’ll be moved into Original Medicare automatically.
The Medigap window worth knowing about
Here’s something a lot of people in this situation don’t realize. If your Medicare Advantage plan is leaving Medicare entirely and you decide to switch to Original Medicare instead of picking another Medicare Advantage plan, you get a federal guaranteed issue right to buy a Medigap policy. That means an insurance company can’t turn you down or charge you more because of your health, which isn’t true if you try to buy Medigap at almost any other time.
You can apply as early as 60 days before your old coverage ends and as late as 63 days after it ends. For anyone with ongoing health issues who’s been putting off Original Medicare because Medigap felt out of reach, this closure is one of the only times that door opens without a health screening.
Sorting through Medigap plans, drug coverage and provider networks on your own is a lot to take on. You don’t have to do it alone. Every state has a State Health Insurance Assistance Program that offers free, unbiased counseling on exactly this kind of decision, and the counselors aren’t selling anything.
