Medicare Advantage is an alternative way to receive your Medicare benefits through a private insurance company, instead of directly through the federal government. These plans must cover everything Original Medicare covers, and most include extra benefits like dental, vision, and drug coverage.
Medicare Advantage is sometimes called Part C. When you enroll, you are still in Medicare. You just receive your benefits through a private insurer that contracts with the federal government rather than through Medicare directly.These plans bundle your hospital coverage (Part A) and medical coverage (Part B) together. Most also include prescription drug coverage, so you do not need a separate Part D plan. Many throw in extras that Original Medicare does not cover at all, things like routine dental cleanings, eye exams, hearing aids, or even gym memberships. That said, extra benefits vary widely by plan and by year, so it is worth checking current offerings rather than assuming.Most Medicare Advantage plans work like an HMO or PPO. An HMO generally requires you to use a specific network of doctors and get referrals to see specialists. A PPO gives you more flexibility to go outside the network, usually at a higher cost. If your doctors are important to you, confirming they are in-network before you pick a plan is essential.One big difference from Original Medicare is that Medicare Advantage plans have a built-in out-of-pocket maximum, which caps your yearly spending on covered services. Original Medicare alone has no such cap.
In Utah, Medicare Advantage plans are offered by carriers including SelectHealth, Regence BlueCross, UHC, Humana, Aetna, Molina, Devoted Health, Cigna, and Wellcare. Plan availability and networks vary by county. If you live in a rural county like Garfield, Kane, or Daggett, your choices may be more limited than they would be in Salt Lake or Utah County. SelectHealth plans are closely tied to Intermountain Health, so if your doctors are part of that system, it is worth checking SelectHealth's network carefully.
For you, this means Medicare Advantage can offer cost and coverage advantages over Original Medicare alone, but the right fit depends heavily on which doctors you want to keep and how much care you typically use in a year.
Our Commitment to Reliable Medicare Information
At Resting Sycamore Advisors, we work to provide accurate, current, and trustworthy information about Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D, and Special Needs Plans.
To do that, we use data published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which is the official source for Medicare plan and enrollment information.
Our Medicare plan pages and comparison tools are powered by CMS datasets, including:
When possible, we link to the original CMS resources so you can review the source material directly.
We follow the CMS release schedule and update our website as new data becomes available.
We load new plan year Landscape and PBP files before the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period (October 15 through December 7). We also monitor CMS.gov for updates or revisions and refresh our content when needed.
We update enrollment and performance data as CMS publishes revised files, which are typically released monthly or quarterly.
We routinely monitor CMS announcements for corrections, reissued files, or other changes and update our pages accordingly.
Each plan page includes a Last Accessed date so visitors can see when the source information was most recently reviewed.
CMS data can be difficult to read in raw form. To make it easier to use, we format and organize the data for clarity.
This includes:
All data values come from CMS. We do not change the underlying values beyond formatting, organization, and presentation.
We keep internal records of the CMS dataset versions used on our site.
If CMS issues corrected or revised files, we update our website to reflect the latest available version.
Please keep the following in mind:
For personalized Medicare assistance, please use these official resources: