29 Hospital Systems Are Dropping Medicare Advantage Plans in 2026 as Insurers Also Cut Enrollees Loose

Twenty-nine health systems are ending Medicare Advantage contracts in 2026, according to a running tally from Becker's Hospital Review updated Sept. 4. That's down from 40 terminations in 2025 and 32 in 2024, but the underlying fight between hospitals and insurers over prior authorization denials and slow reimbursement hasn't cooled off. It's just changed shape.

The newest names on the list tell the story. Naples Comprehensive Health, ranked among America's top 50 hospitals, is going out of network with Centene's Wellcare and Health Care Service Corporation's HealthSpring plans starting in 2027. The hospital says the move lets it "ensure that the plans we partner with truly support quality care" and "reduce unnecessary administrative barriers."

Lee Health in Fort Myers, Fairview Health Services in Minneapolis, University of Miami Health System, and CarolinaEast Medical Center in North Carolina are all cutting UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage contracts by the end of 2026. NewYork-Presbyterian is set to leave UnitedHealthcare on Oct. 1 unless a new deal gets done. Lee Health says UnitedHealthcare owes it more than $100 million in disputed and underpaid claims, according to a hospital statement.

Oklahoma's Norman Regional Health System already dropped Aetna Medicare Advantage in August and confirmed it will exit UnitedHealthcare's network in October too, according to an update posted to its own website. That leaves patients on either plan needing a new in-network hospital for non-emergency care in the same two-month window.

In Boston, Mass General Brigham Health Plan is cutting Dana-Farber Cancer Institute from its Medicare Advantage network on Oct. 1, according to Healthcare Dive. The insurer blamed "the challenging environment affecting Medicare Advantage plans nationwide," though the split also tracks the broader breakup between the two institutions, which announced in 2023 they'd end their decades-long cancer partnership by 2028. MGB is spending $400 million renovating its own cancer facilities ahead of that split.

Denials, appeals, and who's telling the truth

UnitedHealthcare denied 17% of Medicare Advantage prior authorization requests in 2025, the highest rate of any competitor, according to KFF. About 60% of those denials got overturned on appeal, per the Epoch Times' reporting on KFF data.

Across the industry, insurers denied 12% of standard Medicare Advantage authorization requests on average, versus 14% for traditional Medicare and 18% for Affordable Care Act plans, KFF found. Appeals succeeded more often in Medicare Advantage, 67%, than in Medicaid (47%) or ACA plans (43%).

A UnitedHealthcare spokesperson told the Epoch Times the company is "actively negotiating with most of these providers to renew our network relationship," with University of Miami Health System the lone exception. The spokesperson called the disputes routine: "the vast majority of which result in renewed agreements that support continued access to quality, affordable care for the people we serve." That's the insurer's side, and it deserves to be weighed against the hospitals' complaints, not dismissed.

Insurers are cutting people loose too

While hospitals drop insurers, insurers are also dropping patients. Humana's chief financial officer, Celeste Mellet, told analysts the company is "very much focused on the capital returns of the plan," according to the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. Humana cut Medicare Advantage offerings in three states and 194 counties heading into 2026, affecting roughly 500,000 seniors, and has now announced further exits expected to hit about 600,000 more enrollees in 2027.

A Johns Hopkins analysis cited by the same source found roughly one in 10 Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO enrollees, about 2.9 million people, were forced to disenroll for 2026 because their insurer left the market. That's a sharp jump from the roughly 1% annual forced-disenrollment rate seen between 2018 and 2024. Rural beneficiaries face the worst of it, since a single dominant insurer pulling out can leave few or no alternatives that include the same doctors and hospitals.

Humana frames the retreat as prioritizing "higher-performing plans." NCPSSM, a group that has long criticized the private Medicare Advantage model, argues insurers built market share with celebrity endorsements and low-premium offers, then scaled back once competition thinned out. Both things can be true at once: insurers face rising costs too, and Medicare Advantage plans are paid capitated rates by the federal government that both hospitals and insurers are fighting over.

Seniors caught in the middle have real deadlines. NewYork-Presbyterian's UnitedHealthcare contract lapses Oct. 1. Norman Regional's UnitedHealthcare exit hits in October. Mass General Brigham drops Dana-Farber from its Medicare Advantage network Oct. 1. Medicare's annual open enrollment period, when beneficiaries can switch plans, follows soon after, giving affected patients a narrow window to find a new plan that still covers their hospital before 2027 coverage locks in.