Medicare Advantage enrollment is locked for most of the year by design. Outside a short list of exceptions, a beneficiary chooses a plan in the autumn and lives inside that choice until the following autumn. One group of Rhode Island patients is currently standing outside that lock, and the exception closes on August 31, 2026. The opening was not a courtesy from an insurer; it is the federal response to a contract breakdown that pushed a large physician network out of a UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plan.
The physician split that followed a hospital split
The break happened in two waves, a year apart. The first hit the hospitals: a similar breakdown in contract negotiations over Brown University Health hospitals in 2025 sent those hospitals out of network. The second reached the doctors.
The Rhode Island Attorney General’s office states the 2026 event directly on its consumer page on the dispute: “Brown University Health and UnitedHealthcare have announced that, absent a breakthrough in contract negotiations, Brown University Health physician offices will no longer accept UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plans as of July 1, 2026.” That page carries a last-updated date of June 17, 2026, and no settlement between the two organizations has been announced since.
Attorney General Peter F. Neronha put the household consequence in blunt terms. “Once again, patients are caught in the middle of a contract dispute they had no role in creating,” he said. “When negotiations like this break down, the cost, literally and figuratively, is borne by older adults and people with complex medical needs who suddenly have to worry about whether they can keep seeing their doctors or afford their care.”
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The special enrollment period and the three ways to qualify for it
The escape hatch is federal, not local. As the attorney general’s page states, “CMS has approved a SEP permitting affected beneficiaries the option to switch their Medicare enrollment sooner rather than wait for annual open enrollment.” Letters from UnitedHealthcare giving notice of the special enrollment period were to be sent to affected beneficiaries starting on June 17, 2026, and the window runs from the date the letter is received through August 31, 2026.
Eligibility is defined by a relationship to the health system, not by an insurance card alone. The page states that the special enrollment period applies to beneficiaries if they are assigned to, currently receiving care from, or have received care within the past three months from Brown University Health. Three separate doors, one system.
That definition is narrower than it may first appear, and the narrowness is the point. This is not a general reopening of Medicare Advantage enrollment for UnitedHealthcare members across Rhode Island, and nothing on the state’s page suggests otherwise. A member with no assignment to and no recent care from Brown University Health is outside it. The page directs beneficiaries who believe they qualify to 1-800-MEDICARE to use the window.
Which practices are affected, and which plans are not
The affected providers named on the attorney general’s page span primary care, specialty practices, and hospitals: Brown Dermatology, Brown Emergency Medicine, Brown Health Medical Group (Lifespan Physician Group), Brown Health Medical Group Primary Care (Coastal Medical), Brown Medicine, Brown Neurology, Brown Surgical (University Surgical), Brown Urology, Miriam Hospital, Newport Hospital, the Radiosurgery Center of Rhode Island, and Rhode Island Hospital.
Coastal Medical and Lifespan Physician Group are the two entries most likely to appear on ordinary paperwork under their older names, which is one reason a household may hold a bill or an appointment card without recognizing that the practice is on this list.
The coverage that is not affected is listed just as specifically: employer-sponsored commercial plans, Individual Family Plan coverage, Medicaid through the UnitedHealthcare Community Plan, Dual Special Needs Plans, Institutional Special Needs Plans, and Medicare supplemental plans. A person on a Medicare supplement policy is outside this dispute. So is a person on a dual special needs plan, despite the Medicare label. The special enrollment period follows the same boundary as the contract problem that created it.
Emergency care, approved services, and continuity-of-care requests
Emergency coverage does not move with a network. The page states that all plans must cover qualifying emergency services even when those services are provided by an out-of-network hospital, that no one should avoid seeking emergency care because of this change, and that a patient will owe no more for qualifying emergency services delivered at an out-of-network hospital. It cites the federal rule at 42 C.F.R. section 422.113(b)(1)(ii).
Care that was already cleared also survives. According to the page, if a patient previously received approval from UnitedHealthcare for services scheduled to be received from a Brown University Health physician on or after July 1, 2026, UnitedHealthcare states that those services will be covered.
For treatment already underway, there is a separate mechanism worth starting on immediately. Continuity-of-care plans, the page explains, “can allow individuals who are undergoing a course of treatment to continue to see a provider as in-network for a period of time after the provider leaves the network. Patients must generally request approval of a continuity of care plan from their insurer. Because approval can take time, it is best to start this process as soon as possible.” The page separately notes that Medicare Advantage plans are required to cover medically necessary services that are unavailable through network providers and generally must provide those services at in-network cost sharing, citing 42 C.F.R. section 422.112(a)(1)(iii).
The phone numbers on the page, and the date after August 31
Three numbers are published for people trying to sort this out before the window closes. Medicare itself, at 1-800-MEDICARE, is the line the page names for using the special enrollment period. Rhode Island’s State Health Insurance Assistance Program offers free counseling at 888-884-8721, through the state Office of Healthy Aging’s Medicare resources. The attorney general’s health care line is 401-274-4400, extension 2514.
After August 31 the ordinary calendar returns. The next chance to change a Medicare Advantage plan is annual Open Enrollment, which runs October 15 through December 7, 2026, with coverage taking effect the following January. That is a gap of several months between the day the special window shuts and the day a new choice would begin paying, which is the practical reason the August 31 date carries weight for anyone in the middle of treatment.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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