Health insurance for Colorado consultants who travel: finding a PPO outside the marketplace

Sam Jaber, Licensed Health Insurance Advisor · Updated October 2026
NPN 20698748 · Licensed in 31 states, Colorado included · License details

The short answer: Colorado's 2026 marketplace has HMO and EPO medical plans and no PPO, and full prices rose about 21.2%. If your income earns a tax credit, a Connect for Health Colorado plan is usually the most affordable. Above that line, healthy consultants can price an underwritten plan on a nationwide PPO network instead.

You run a consulting practice from Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs or Fort Collins, and your best clients are in Austin, Chicago or anywhere but down the street. You bill by the engagement, buy your own coverage, and need it to work where the work is.

For 2026, Connect for Health Colorado offers no PPO medical plans, per CMS's state marketplace plan files; its six insurers sell HMOs and EPOs that cover routine care in Colorado. Full-price premiums also rose about 21.2%, the same year the state cut funding for the reinsurance program that had held them down.

Everything else follows from one question: will your household income this year be inside the range for a premium tax credit? A single consultant loses federal help for 2027 coverage, picked in open enrollment from November 1, above $63,840 of income ($62,600 for 2026), which is 400% of the poverty guideline, and families have a higher line.

If your fee income falls inside the credit range

If a first year on your own or a lost anchor client puts you in the credit range, a plan from Connect for Health Colorado is usually the most affordable option you have, HMO or EPO network and all, because federal credits only apply to marketplace plans.

Colorado adds a state layer. Colorado Premium Assistance pays an extra state subsidy on top of the federal credit for households under a set income limit, so check both amounts when you apply rather than judging the price from the federal number alone.

The catch is the estimate. Engagement income tends to arrive in large, uneven pieces, and a credit taken in advance is reconciled when you file. Land a big statement of work in the fall and you may owe part or all of the credit back. Our explainer on the subsidy cliff walks through the risk.

On the road, a Colorado plan protects you in an emergency, since federal rules require marketplace plans to cover emergency care out of network with no prior approval and at in-network cost. Routine visits and refills are for the weeks you are home.

If your engagements put you over the credit range

Above the line, you pay the whole Colorado premium. The average benchmark plan, the second-lowest-cost silver, cost $557 a month for a 40-year-old in 2026, after that 21.2% average rise.

For that price you get an HMO or EPO built around Colorado providers, while your billable weeks are spent in other states. A lot of consultants above the line conclude that full-price marketplace coverage does not justify its cost for how they work. Which way to go from there depends on your health.

The $557 is a statewide average for one age. Your own price depends on age, where in Colorado you live and who is covered.

If you're healthy and your clients are out of state

This is the route most consultants reading this are looking for. Outside the marketplace, there are private health plans that use medical underwriting and are built on PPO networks covering the whole country. Connect for Health Colorado does not sell them, so its HMO and EPO lineup is no limit, and a doctor near a client's office in Dallas can be in network the same way one in Lakewood is.

The points that matter for a consultant:

• Medical questions come with the application. The insurer reads your answers and accepts you, declines you, or excludes a condition you already have, which is why this suits consultants in good health.
• Underwriting is behind the lower price. A plan that only enrolls people who pass a health review covers less risk than one open to all, so a healthy consultant can pay less than full-price Colorado coverage.
• Test the directory against your client list. Search for in-network primary care and urgent care near the offices you visit most, not only near home.
• Know what you're buying. These plans set their own benefits outside marketplace rules, so read the coverage before you commit. Our page on medical underwriting covers the details.

The deciding comparison is the PPO plan's premium and network against a full-price Colorado HMO or EPO for the same household.

If you see a specialist or take a regular prescription

A medical history that needs managing tips the decision back to the marketplace. Connect for Health Colorado plans cannot turn you down or charge you more for your health, and an underwritten plan could do either, or exclude the condition you need covered most.

In that case the task is picking the Colorado plan that fits your care. Six insurers sell on the marketplace, fewer may serve your address, and an HMO and an EPO from the same company can have different doctor lists, so check your specialists and your drug list plan by plan and book appointments around your travel.

If one engagement keeps you in another state for months

Long on-site engagements raise a question consultants ask a lot: should you switch to the other state's marketplace? Usually not. Your home marketplace is generally the one in the state where you live and intend to return, and a temporary engagement does not change that. A permanent move is different and opens a special enrollment period in the new state.

So for six months in Minneapolis, a Colorado HMO or EPO still treats you as out of network for anything that is not an emergency. If your spouse and children stay in Colorado, the household's needs split in two: they use the local network every week, while you need care somewhere else. Price coverage for the whole household with that split in mind, not just for yourself.

If your COBRA from a former firm is running out

Plenty of consultants go out on their own while still on COBRA from the firm they left. COBRA keeps the old group plan for a limited time, at up to 102% of its full cost, and when it runs out, that loss of coverage opens a 60-day window to enroll through Connect for Health Colorado. You can usually choose the new plan before the end date as well, which is the better move: the replacement then starts the day COBRA stops.

If you are healthy and your income sits above the credit range, put an underwritten nationwide PPO plan in that comparison too. For the rest of the leaving-a-job picture in Colorado, including the state's own continuation rules, see our guide for consultants leaving a Colorado job.

Which of these is you?

Match your year to a row. Every row leads to the same next step, since your engagements, your income and your household are faster to sort out in a short call than in a table.

Torn between two rows? The call will settle it. The Colorado guide for self-employed buyers covers the state's programs in depth, and consultants based in Virginia, where the marketplace PPO depends on your county, can read our Virginia consultants page.

Questions from consultants in Colorado