Is HonorHealth leaving AZ Blue Medicare Advantage in 2027?

Yes. HonorHealth says that as of January 1, 2027 it will no longer be in network with the AZ Blue Best Life (HMO) Medicare Advantage plans, and that covers its employed physicians, its specialists and its hospitals, including HonorHealth Sonoran Crossing and HonorHealth Deer Valley in North Phoenix. Its primary care doctors came out of that network earlier, on July 1, 2026. The plans are not ending: Blue Best Life Classic and Plus are in the CMS 2027 file for Maricopa, Pinal and Pima counties, a new Select plan joins them, and about 31,600 Maricopa County households were on them in September. HonorHealth says the change applies only to Best Life (HMO) plans and that it stays in network with every other Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona plan.

I am writing this for the north end of my patch, North Phoenix, Anthem and north Peoria, because those are the households for whom HonorHealth is the hospital system down the freeway. HonorHealth Sonoran Crossing Medical Center sits at Interstate 17 and Dove Valley Road, and HonorHealth Deer Valley Medical Center is at the I-17 and Loop 101 interchange on 27th Avenue. For a Blue Best Life member in 85085, 85086 or the Happy Valley corridor, those two buildings and the HonorHealth doctors who admit to them are the practical meaning of this notice. A plan continuing and a plan still working for you are different things, and this is a case where the first is true and the second may not be.

What HonorHealth says is changing, and when

Everything below comes from HonorHealth’s own notice page and its insurance page, which carries an “Updated: July 15, 2026” date. I have not found a parallel statement from AZ Blue, so the account is HonorHealth’s and I quote it as such.

HonorHealth says the carrier announced the network change on March 16, and describes it this way: “Effective July 1, 2026: AZ Blue Best Life (HMO) Medicare Advantage removed HonorHealth primary care providers (PCPs) from its network. This decision was made by AZ Blue and was outside of HonorHealth’s control.” The second step is the one that matters for this Annual Enrollment: “Effective Jan. 1, 2027: As a result of the change to the in-network status of HonorHealth’s PCPs, as of Jan. 1, 2027, HonorHealth, including all employed physicians, specialists and facilities, will no longer be in network with AZ Blue Best Life (HMO) Medicare Advantage network.”

Two sentences on the same page narrow it: “These changes apply only to AZ Blue Best Life (HMO) Medicare Advantage plans,” and “HonorHealth continues to be in network with all other Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona plans.” So an AZ Blue employer plan, a retiree plan, a Medicare Supplement sold by AZ Blue or an individual plan is not what this is about. It is the Medicare Advantage HMO family, and only that.

Source: HonorHealth, "Changes to AZ Blue Best Life (HMO) Medicare Advantage plans," and HonorHealth's insurance page updated July 15, 2026. Carrier and hospital names are factual reporting, not endorsements.

One detail in that timeline deserves a flag. The July change came with a Special Election Period that HonorHealth says ran through July 31, 2026. That window is closed. A member who did not move then is now in the ordinary calendar, and the ordinary calendar is Annual Enrollment, which opens in a week.

Which plans “AZ Blue Best Life (HMO)” actually means

Blue Best Life is the name AZ Blue uses for its Medicare Advantage HMO plans, sold under CMS contract H0302. In the Valley that was two plans this year and is three next year. These are the Maricopa County rows from the CMS landscape files for 2026 and 2027, matched by contract and plan number, with September 2026 county enrollment from the CMS monthly file. Pinal County carries the same plans at the same figures; Pima has its own Classic and a new Select.

Source: CMS CY2026 and CY2027 Medicare Advantage / Part D Landscape files and the September 2026 CPSC enrollment file, matched by Contract Plan ID. Caps are in-network maximum out-of-pocket amounts. Counties with fewer than eleven members are suppressed in the CMS file and omitted here.

Three things to read off that table. First, nothing is ending; the plan on your card is in the 2027 file. Second, the caps rose by $750 on Classic and $500 on Plus, and the Part D deductible on both went from $385 to $500. Third, the Classic plan alone had 27,848 Maricopa members in September, which makes it one of the larger single HMO plans in the county, and AZ Blue said in October 2025 that its Best Life plans earned a 4.5-star rating for 2026, the only non-SNP Arizona plan at that level. The 2027 Star Ratings were not published when this was written; CMS releases them in October, and when they land they are a measure of plan administration and member experience, not of the quality of any particular hospital.

This is a network change, not a plan ending, and that decides which doors are open

The reason this distinction matters is that a plan leaving Medicare opens doors that a plan changing its network does not. I wrote up which Arizona plans are actually ending for 2027 last week, and the members of those plans got a non-renewal letter dated October 2, a Special Enrollment Period from December 8 through February 28, and a federal guaranteed-issue right to a Medicare Supplement with no health questions from November 1 through March 4. None of that attaches here.

What a Blue Best Life member got in September is an Annual Notice of Change, which says the plan continues and lists what moved. Medicare’s own fact sheet on Advantage networks says a plan can add or remove providers at any time during the year and that a member whose provider leaves needs to choose a new one in the network. Medicare.gov lists a Special Enrollment Period for a significant change in a plan’s provider network, evaluated case by case with two months to switch when it is granted, and HonorHealth’s page says the one tied to the July change closed on July 31. Arizona has no Medigap birthday rule and no annual supplement window, so a Best Life member who would rather be on Original Medicare with a supplement goes through ordinary underwriting, unless they are inside a different protected window of their own, such as the first twelve months after joining an Advantage plan at 65. What happens when a doctor leaves your network is the general version of this; this post is the specific one.

The windows that are open are the ordinary ones. Annual Enrollment runs October 15 through December 7, 2026, and a plan chosen then starts January 1, the same day HonorHealth comes out of the network. The Medicare Advantage open enrollment period, January 1 through March 31, 2027, allows one more move to another Advantage plan or back to Original Medicare for anyone who discovers in January that the new arrangement does not work. When open enrollment starts and what it covers has the calendar.

If you want to keep your HonorHealth doctor: what HonorHealth says it accepts

HonorHealth publishes a list of the Medicare Advantage plans it participates in, and the useful thing about it is that it distinguishes between plans where the whole system is in and plans where the hospitals and specialists are in but the primary care doctors are not. That distinction is the whole story of this notice, so it is worth reading carefully. The table below is HonorHealth’s list as of its July 15, 2026 update, with HonorHealth’s own wording about primary care.

Source: HonorHealth insurance page, "Updated: July 15, 2026," which also states that the list is not all-inclusive and that not all locations are included in all plans. Plan and carrier names are reported as HonorHealth lists them and are not endorsements. The 2027 status notes are from the CMS CY2027 landscape file.

Four cautions before anyone acts on that table, because it is the kind of list people screenshot and treat as settled.

It is HonorHealth’s list, not the plans’ directories, and it is a 2026 list. Networks reset in January, and HonorHealth itself says it updates this page in early January. The only document that decides whether your doctor is covered on January 1 is the plan’s 2027 provider directory, checked by the doctor’s name, not the hospital’s logo. The same page that says HonorHealth is in a plan can be true for the building and false for the physician you see in it. How Advantage networks are built explains why the hospitalist, anesthesia and radiology groups inside a hospital contract separately from the hospital.

Two plans on HonorHealth’s list are not on the 2027 shelf. HealthSpring Preferred (HMO), the plan HonorHealth lists with all of its locations participating, is not in the CMS 2027 file for any county; neither is eternalHealth Grand Give Back. A Best Life member who moves toward HealthSpring for HonorHealth access needs to be looking at the HealthSpring plans that continue, and those carry their own network notes. The plans-ending post has the detail.

“Primary care” is the hinge. For a Best Life member whose attachment to HonorHealth is a primary care doctor, most of the plans on that list do not solve the problem; by HonorHealth’s own notes, only the UnitedHealthcare Phoenix Direct HMO Plans 1, 3 and 4 and the HealthSpring Preferred and Achieve plans carry HonorHealth PCPs, and one of those is ending. For a member whose attachment is a cardiologist, an orthopedic surgeon or the hospital itself, the list is much longer. Know which one you are before you shop.

Check whether your doctor became an HonorHealth doctor this year. HonorHealth completed the purchase of eleven Evernorth Care Group primary care clinics in January 2026, clinics it says were serving close to 80,000 patients. HonorHealth’s July 1 change covered its employed primary care providers. If the sign on your clinic changed this year, ask the front desk whether your doctor is now an HonorHealth Medical Group physician, because the answer may put you inside this notice without your ever having chosen HonorHealth.

If you would rather keep the plan

Staying is a legitimate choice, and for a Best Life member whose doctors are elsewhere it may be the right one. Here is what staying looks like, from HonorHealth’s page and the CMS file. Classic stays at $0 with a $3,550 in-network cap; Plus goes to $49 with a $3,000 cap; the new Select plan is $0 with a $4,450 cap. HonorHealth says AZ Blue may assign a new in-network primary care doctor to members who stay, and that records can be transferred through CareLink or requested directly. From January 1, HonorHealth specialists, hospitals and outpatient facilities are out of the network, and on an HMO that generally means non-emergency care there is not covered. Emergency care is covered everywhere under every Advantage plan, so a trip to the Sonoran Crossing emergency department in an actual emergency is not the issue; a scheduled procedure there is.

HonorHealth also says continuity-of-care protections may apply to a member already scheduled for non-elective surgery or being treated for a serious or complex illness, an inpatient stay, a terminal illness or post-operative care, and that AZ Blue decides eligibility. If that is you, ask the plan now, in writing, and keep the answer. Medicare requires a plan that changes its network to protect members from interruptions in medically necessary care, and that protection is usually something you request rather than something that arrives.

The rest of the Maricopa list, briefly

A Best Life member shopping during Annual Enrollment is shopping a county list that itself changed. Maricopa’s general Medicare Advantage menu goes from 46 plans to 45 for 2027: eight plans ended, from Aetna, Wellcare, HealthSpring and eternalHealth, and new plans arrived from Devoted, Humana, SCAN and AZ Blue itself. The Aetna, Humana, Wellcare and UnitedHealthcare pictures are each written up carrier by carrier, and I will not repeat them here.

One new arrival is worth a sentence because it was announced yesterday. SCAN and Walmart said on October 7 that they are launching co-branded plans in Maricopa, Pima and Pinal counties for January 1: SCAN Walmart Health Advantage (HMO) at $0 a month with a $0 primary care copay, $0 Tier 1 and Tier 2 drug copays, up to $780 a year for over-the-counter items and healthy food, a $350 vision allowance and dental coverage the release puts at $3,000 to $3,500, plus a chronic-condition plan with a $16.80 premium in Arizona, $0 with full Extra Help. The HMO appears in the CMS file as H1822-009 with a $2,500 in-network cap. It is a new plan with a 2027 directory and no track record in this county, and HonorHealth’s note on SCAN is that its hospitals and specialists participate but its primary care doctors do not, so it belongs in the comparison on its own merits and not as an HonorHealth answer.

What a north Peoria or North Phoenix household should do before December 7

1. Decide which HonorHealth you mean. Pull twelve months of statements and sort the HonorHealth names into primary care, specialists and hospital. The answer to this notice is different for each.
2. Check your doctors in the 2027 directories, by name. Not HonorHealth’s list, not a carrier’s brochure, the directory for the specific plan, for 2027. Do it for every doctor you would mind losing, and write down the date you checked.
3. Run the full-year number, not the premium. The new caps on Classic and Plus are higher than this year’s, and the Part D deductible rose. A plan with a higher premium and a cap you will never reach can cost less than a $0 plan you use heavily, and the worst year is the one to plan for.
4. Price your own ZIP. The Peoria–Glendale–Sun City seam puts neighbors a mile apart on different line-ups, and 85085 and 85086 on the I-17 side are a different quote again. Why Peoria quotes differ by ZIP covers it.
5. Be honest about the supplement door. No guaranteed-issue window opens for a network change. If Original Medicare with a Medicare Supplement is where you would rather be, and you are in reasonable health, an underwritten application is possible, and the structural cost is the Part B premium of $202.90 a month in 2026 that you already pay, plus the supplement, plus a stand-alone drug plan. Plan G against Plan N for Arizona is the read if that is the direction.

The dates

• September 2026. The Annual Notice of Change arrived. Read it for the cap, the Part D deductible and the network language; it is the document that governs 2027 if you do nothing.
• October 15 to December 7, 2026. Annual Enrollment, the only window with a clean January 1 start.
• December 31, 2026. HonorHealth’s last day in the Best Life (HMO) network for specialists, hospitals and outpatient facilities, per HonorHealth.
• January 1, 2027. New plans start; HonorHealth is out of the Best Life network.
• January 1 to March 31, 2027. The Medicare Advantage open enrollment period, one more move for anyone who finds in January that the arrangement does not fit.

The short version

• HonorHealth is leaving the AZ Blue Best Life (HMO) network on January 1, 2027, physicians, specialists and hospitals included, after its primary care doctors came out on July 1, 2026. HonorHealth says the decision was AZ Blue’s.
• Only the Best Life (HMO) Medicare Advantage plans are affected. HonorHealth stays in network with every other Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona plan.
• The plans continue. Classic at $0 with a $3,550 cap, Plus at $49 with a $3,000 cap, and a new Select at $0 with a $4,450 cap, in Maricopa and Pinal; Classic and Select in Pima. About 31,600 Maricopa members held Classic and Plus in September.
• A network change is not a plan ending. No non-renewal letter, no December 8 to February 28 Special Enrollment Period, and no guaranteed-issue Medicare Supplement window on these grounds. The July Special Election Period closed July 31.
• The window is Annual Enrollment, October 15 to December 7, then one more move January 1 to March 31.
• HonorHealth’s accepted-plans list is a 2026 list, and most plans on it carry HonorHealth hospitals and specialists but not HonorHealth primary care doctors. Confirm your own doctor in the plan’s 2027 directory before you move.

If you would rather have someone check it for you

Bring the notice, your cards and twelve months of statements, and I will sort your HonorHealth doctors into the three groups, run each name against the 2027 directories of the plans on your ZIP’s list, and put your prescriptions through the new deductibles so you see the full-year number. It takes about half an hour and there is no charge for the conversation. I am independent, so the answer can be the plan you already have, any other plan on the county list, or none of them.

I work with people across Peoria, North Phoenix and on the Glendale side of the seam. The office is in Anthem, a few minutes up I-17 from Sonoran Crossing and roughly 25 minutes from north Peoria out the Carefree Highway and down Lake Pleasant Parkway, and most of this gets done by phone. Call (602) 844-6002 or book a time — and if you call or text, that is your consent for me to reply the same way.