You can still get a nationwide PPO in North Carolina, even in the Triangle counties where the marketplace sells none. Here is how travelers who keep a home base around Durham and Raleigh cover the road and the gaps.
Hi, I'm Sam Jaber. I'm a broker in Tampa, licensed in 36 states, and I help travel nurses carry their own coverage from one contract to the next. Wherever your assignment is, we talk by phone.
Here's a picture that fits a lot of nurses in the Triangle. You trained and worked at one of the big hospital systems between Durham and Chapel Hill, then went travel. You kept your house off Hillandale Road because it's home and your partner's job is here. This year's contracts are in Phoenix, then Boston, then maybe Denver. Between them you come back to Durham for a few weeks. Your agency plan follows the contract, so it starts and stops with it. When you shop for a plan of your own at your Durham address, the marketplace offers no PPO at all.
North Carolina's 2026 marketplace lists 206 individual medical plans, and nine are PPOs, all from a single insurer, sold in 90 of the state's 100 counties. The ten counties left out are the Triangle and its neighbors: Wake, Durham, Orange, Chatham, Johnston, Franklin, Person, Alamance, Caswell and Lee. Durham's menu is 31 plans from three insurers, 22 HMOs and 9 EPOs.
You can still get a nationwide PPO in North Carolina through me, at your Triangle address. It's a private plan, priced after a health questionnaire, and its network reaches the cities you work in as well as the doctors at home.
The marketplace credit depends on your household income for the whole year, up to four times the federal poverty level. A traveler's year is lumpy. Stipends, gaps between assignments, a month off in summer and any 1099 work all change the total. Estimate it from the contracts you've signed and the ones you expect, then come back to it each time a new one is signed.
That's the most common call I get from travelers. When job-based coverage ends, you have 60 days to enroll on the marketplace through a special enrollment period. COBRA keeps the agency plan going, but dropping COBRA on purpose later, or letting payments lapse, won't open a new window. Choose your path before you elect it.
You may also hear about short-term plans as a bridge. In North Carolina, the insurance department said in 2025 that those plans still have to meet the current federal definition, even though federal enforcement has eased. Read any short-term offer carefully before counting on it.
A plan you own outright avoids the whole cycle, because nothing ends when the assignment does.
Next step: Call me before your last shift and we'll set up coverage for the weeks between contracts.
Picture a Durham HMO while you're on a 13-week contract in Arizona. HMOs and EPOs generally pay outside their network only in an emergency, so a sinus infection, a sprained ankle or a refill visit out there may be on you. For a healthy nurse earning too much for the credit, that's the strongest argument for a private plan built on a nationwide PPO network.
You'll answer medical questions to apply. Based on them, you're approved, approved with something specific excluded, or declined. Every plan lists its own benefits, and we'll go through them line by line.
Next step: Book a call and I'll price a nationwide PPO for you next to the full marketplace price at your Durham address.
Maybe you stepped off the road for a few months, or picked up per diem shifts at home between trips. If the year comes in under the credit line, a marketplace plan is usually your most affordable option. Even then, in the Triangle that means an HMO or EPO, so plan routine care for your weeks at home and know what your network does when you're away.
Next step: Send me your contract dates and I'll turn them into an estimate and a plan that fits the year.
If you take a medication daily or see a specialist on a schedule, start on the marketplace even at full price. Marketplace plans accept everyone and can't price you on your health. Pick the Durham plan that includes your specialist, and time refills and visits around your trips home.
Next step: Tell me your doctors and prescriptions, and I'll find the Triangle plans that keep them in network.
Straight answers, no sales pitch.
No. For 2026 the marketplace sells no PPO in Wake, Durham, Orange or seven nearby counties. Plans there are HMOs and EPOs.
Generally only in an emergency, because HMOs and EPOs pay outside their network only then.
Short-term plans here must still meet the current federal definition, per a 2025 state insurance bulletin. Read the terms closely.
Yes. A healthy nurse can buy one privately through me, Triangle address included.
Send me your home county, your contract dates for the year and the state you're headed to next. I'll show you how to keep coverage through the gaps and what a plan that works on the road would cost.
The guide for every state, and other work I help with