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PPO Health Insurance in Colorado for the Self-Employed: Where to Find It
Ask for a PPO on Connect for Health Colorado in Colorado and you'll mostly find HMOs and EPOs. Here's why, and where PPOs still live.
Why marketplace PPOs vanished
Guaranteed-issue plans attract the highest-cost members, and broad PPO networks are expensive to run for that population. Carriers like Anthem, Kaiser Permanente, Rocky Mountain Health Plans, Cigna, and Denver Health responded by narrowing networks and dropping out-of-network benefits. The result: most individual plans in Colorado are built around one hospital system.
Where PPOs still exist
In the private shared-network market. Carriers lease the national Cigna, Aetna and PHCS PPO PPO networks — the same networks large employers use — and sell underwritten plans on them. No referrals, any in-network specialist, coverage in every state. For self-employed people who travel or want to choose their own doctors, this is usually the only way to get a PPO.
What a Colorado PPO costs
For healthy individuals, roughly $290–$600 a month depending on age and deductible; families roughly $800–$1,300. You can see live prices on our quoter.
Who qualifies
These plans are underwritten. Generally healthy applicants with no major pre-existing conditions. If that's not you, a marketplace plan is the right answer and we'll say so. Colorado requires carriers to sell standardized 'Colorado Option' plans on the marketplace, and mountain-county premiums run well above Front Range prices — the gap private plans tend to close.
Check your options to see the PPOs available in your ZIP.