Naples Comprehensive Health, the two-hospital, 713-bed system that anchors healthcare in Collier County, is cutting ties with two of the region’s largest Medicare Advantage carriers. Cigna’s Healthspring Medicare Advantage plans and Centene’s Wellcare Medicare Advantage plans are set to fall out of network at every NCH hospital, clinic, and physician office once the new year begins. For anyone holding one of those two cards, the practical effect lands squarely on the household budget: a routine visit, a specialist referral, or a hospital stay that used to run at an in-network rate could suddenly cost far more, or require finding a new doctor altogether.
Cigna, Healthspring and Wellcare Marked “Out of Network” by NCH
NCH’s own contracted-insurance page, last updated August 27, 2026, lists Cigna, its Healthspring Medicare Advantage product, and Wellcare Medicare Advantage as “Out of Network 12/31/26” for both Naples Community Hospital and the separate NCH Medical Group physician practices. That notation is the health system’s current, company-confirmed position: nothing on the page suggests a renewed agreement is close, and the date has not moved since the list was last refreshed. Once the calendar turns past December 31, 2026, a Medicare Advantage member on either plan loses in-network access to NCH’s hospitals and to the doctors who bill under the health system, unless a plan switch happens first. NCH is not a peripheral player in this decision. The health system includes NCH Baker Hospital and NCH North Naples Hospital, a combined 713 beds, an alliance of more than 1,000 physicians, and an NCH Medical Group practice of more than 250 board-certified physicians and advanced practice providers spread across more than 40 locations from Marco Island to Bonita Springs. A carrier losing network status there touches a meaningful share of primary and specialty care across the county.
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What Stays Covered After the Contracts End
Losing in-network status does not erase all coverage. Emergency care remains available regardless of network status, and Medicare Advantage plans are required to cover emergency services no matter where a patient is treated. What changes is everything that is not an emergency: elective surgeries, specialist follow-ups, and standing primary-care appointments with an NCH-affiliated doctor would no longer be scheduled as in-network visits for Cigna/Healthspring or Wellcare Medicare Advantage members after the cutoff, pushing those patients toward out-of-network cost-sharing, a plan-approved referral elsewhere, or a search for a new doctor entirely. Medicare Advantage plans typically set much steeper cost-sharing, or none at all, for non-emergency care delivered outside the network, which is what turns a network exit into a real household expense rather than a paperwork inconvenience. Members mid-treatment for a serious or chronic condition may be able to request continuity-of-care coverage from their own plan for a limited stretch, a process each insurer, not NCH, controls and approves case by case.
The Annual Election Period Is the Practical Deadline
For anyone who wants to avoid the disruption altogether, the fix runs through the federal government’s enrollment calendar rather than through NCH or the two carriers. CMS calls this window the Annual Coordinated Election Period, and it runs from October 15 through December 7 each year, closing more than three weeks before the Cigna/Healthspring and Wellcare contracts actually end on December 31. A Medicare Advantage member who wants to keep an NCH doctor has to use that window to switch into a plan the health system still accepts, since enrollment changes made after December 7 generally will not take effect before the new plan year starts. Waiting past that date to act means starting 2027 on an out-of-network plan by default, with no guarantee of a fast fix once the calendar turns.
Medicare Supplement Plans Sit Outside the Dispute
Not every Medicare-related product on NCH’s list is caught up in this change. A Medigap, or Medicare Supplement, policy works alongside Original Medicare, which does not restrict a beneficiary to a network of doctors, so a Medigap policyholder can see any physician who accepts Medicare assignment, NCH included, regardless of which company sold the supplement. That distinction matters for household budgeting this enrollment season: moving from a Cigna/Healthspring or Wellcare Medicare Advantage plan into Original Medicare paired with a Medigap policy is one way to keep an NCH doctor without waiting on a new network contract. CMS has also discussed, alongside state insurance regulators, whether a significant Medicare Advantage network change can trigger a special election period and guaranteed-issue rights that let an affected member buy a Medigap policy without medical underwriting; whether this particular exit clears that bar is a question for Florida’s insurance regulators and each Medigap carrier, not something NCH’s notice settles on its own.
One Contract Break in a Wider Industry Pattern
NCH is not alone in walking away from Medicare Advantage contracts this year. Becker’s Hospital Review has tracked at least 30 U.S. health systems that dropped or lost Medicare Advantage contracts in 2026, a list that includes NCH’s own split from Wellcare and Healthspring alongside separate departures from insurers such as Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealthcare at systems stretching from Ohio to Idaho. Hospitals making these breaks generally point to slow reimbursement and prior-authorization denials as the reason, while insurers sometimes end the contracts on their own terms instead. For Medicare Advantage members in Collier County, the underlying industry fight matters less than the calendar sitting on NCH’s own website: the change is marked final unless something shifts before December 31, 2026.
Medicare’s premium and drug-cost programs
A network change like this one tends to surface only when a bill or a canceled appointment forces the issue, and the programs that sit on the cost side of the same Medicare card behave the same way. Medicare Savings Programs cover the Part B premium for older households under a set income limit, and Extra Help lowers what Part D charges for prescriptions. Neither one starts on its own; both are applied for, and both go unclaimed when no one files.
The Benefits Checklist is a 63-page guide covering 11 programs, with the 2026 income limits for each and a 50-state directory of the offices that handle them.
Compare the 11 programs side by side in The Benefits Checklist.
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.
