You can still get a nationwide PPO in Utah, even though the marketplace sells none. Here is how travel nurses who keep a Salt Lake home choose between a local network and coverage that travels.
Hi, I'm Sam Jaber, a broker in Tampa with licenses in 36 states. Travel nurses who keep a Utah home, from Sugar House and Murray to Ogden and Lehi, can arrange their own coverage with me by phone.
Picture a cardiac nurse who owns a townhome in Millcreek. She's home for Christmas, a few weeks in late spring and most of September. The rest of the year she's on contracts: Seattle in the winter, Houston in the summer, Atlanta in the fall. When she prices coverage from Salt Lake County, she has more to choose from than most Utahns, five insurers in all. The trouble is what those five sell.
Every plan on Utah's exchange for 2026 is either an HMO or an EPO, 57 in total, and none of them is a PPO, no matter how many insurers your county has.
You can still get a nationwide PPO in Utah. I arrange it outside HealthCare.gov; the insurer prices it from a medical questionnaire, and its network follows her from Seattle to Houston to Atlanta without referrals.
A Salt Lake County nurse can almost always find a local network that includes her primary doctor and the cardiologist she sees when she's home. That part is easy. The hard part is that an HMO or EPO typically won't pay for anything outside its network short of an emergency. Strep throat during a Houston contract, a sprained ankle on a Seattle hike, a refill appointment in Atlanta: those are usually out of pocket on a Utah marketplace plan.
So the more of the year you spend away, the less a local network is worth to you, however good it is at home.
Here a private PPO usually makes more sense than the exchange. After you answer the health questions, the insurer either takes you as you applied, takes you with a single condition left out, or turns you down. Healthy nurses often find it costs less than an unsubsidized Utah plan they'd only use a few weeks a year.
Next step: Let's go over your next four contracts, and I'll lay a nationwide PPO quote beside the Salt Lake County marketplace plans.
That loss gives you a special enrollment period on HealthCare.gov, normally 60 days. You can keep the agency plan through COBRA instead, but walking away from COBRA on your own later won't reopen enrollment. If you're leaving Utah again soon, a local network may not help much during the next contract.
Next step: While you're still on this assignment, call me and we'll bridge the gap with coverage that also works on the next one.
If you take local contracts or a long break, your income may fall into the credit range, and a Salt Lake marketplace plan built around your doctors becomes the thrifty choice. A very light year might even fall under Utah's Medicaid line, which KFF puts at 138% of the federal poverty level. And a nurse managing a chronic condition does better on the exchange at any income, because it can't turn her away or charge extra for her history.
Next step: Show me the year you're planning, and I'll point you to the Utah option that fits your home months.
If a spouse or kids stay in Salt Lake while you travel, their needs count too. A local network may suit them perfectly, and you might pair a family marketplace plan with a separate approach for yourself, or put everyone on a nationwide PPO. We can price it both ways.
The simplest test is a calendar. Mark the weeks you'll sleep in Salt Lake this year. If it's most of them, a local plan built around your doctors can be a smart buy, especially with the credit. If it's a handful, you'd be paying for a network you barely use, and a national PPO is worth pricing.
Straight answers, no sales pitch.
No. Utah's marketplace plans are all HMOs and EPOs. Nurses in good health can get a nationwide PPO privately through me.
Five for 2026.
Generally just emergencies, since HMOs and EPOs rarely cover routine care outside their networks.
Yes. Losing that coverage opens a special enrollment period, usually 60 days. COBRA is the alternative.
Give me your Salt Lake-area address, the cities you're booked in through next year and anyone who shares your plan, and I'll weigh a home network against coverage that travels.
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