A New Maine Bronze Plan Uses Mending's DPC Network, With an $8,500 Deductible

Mending will stop offering health insurance in Maine on January 1. The direct primary care network its plans were built around will still be available, inside another carrier’s plan.

Community Health Options is selling a new plan for 2027, the “$8500 Bronze Essential Direct Primary Care HMO NE,” that gives members access to Mending Health’s direct primary care network. The name gives away the trade. Mending’s Maine page lists bronze deductibles of $4,150 and $4,950. This one is $8,500.

For a DPC doctor in Maine with patients on Mending coverage, that is the most concrete answer yet to where those patients go next.

How the plan works

Community Health Options describes the benefit in its open enrollment FAQ. “DPC membership is included in your plan premium, so there are no separate monthly fees or copays for primary or behavioral health care visits,” the carrier says. Members get “$0, unlimited PCP and behavioral health visits with Mending Health network providers,” with appointments up to 45 minutes and phone, text or video access to the doctor.

Everything past primary care runs through the carrier’s regular network. Community Health Options says that network covers specialty care, hospital stays, labs and prescriptions, and counts more than 48,000 in-network providers, hospitals and pharmacies across Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts.

A member can also skip DPC. The plan page says members can choose a Mending Health DPC provider or the carrier’s traditional network, and can switch to traditional primary care “at any time.”

The carrier’s comparison chart lists $0 primary care and $0 mental health visits for the DPC plan. Its standard bronze plans charge $25 to $75 for each.

Why Mending isn’t selling it

Mending told the Maine Bureau of Insurance in June that it would stop offering health insurance in the state as of January 1, 2027. In August, Oklahoma’s insurance department disclosed that its commissioner had placed Mending’s insurance arm under state supervision, citing the company’s financial situation. DPC Insider covered that order at the time.

Mending’s own update page, last revised October 15, says it is partnering with Community Health Options “on a transition path starting 1/1/27.” It calls the new product a plan “very similar to Mending’s current plans” where “DPC providers are in-network,” and says it will share more on how to transition during open enrollment.

The same page says Mending will keep serving TPAs, large employers and other health plans through its Mending Access product. Maine’s arrangement now splits the two halves of the old model: one company holds the insurance risk, and the other holds the DPC network.

Oklahoma got the same split earlier. In June, CommunityCare announced a partnership with Mending to put DPC providers in its 2027 marketplace plans there.

The deductible is the price of the handoff

“Very similar” covers the primary care side. The deductible is where the two plans part.

Mending’s Maine plan page still shows two sets of plans, with bronze deductibles of $4,150 and $4,950, silver at $1,900 and $2,300, and gold at $0, all with $0 primary care. The Community Health Options comparison chart names one DPC plan, a bronze plan at $8,500. Its other bronze plans run $7,500 to $8,500, so the DPC version sits at the top of the carrier’s own bronze range.

On that chart, DPC appears only at bronze. A Mending member on silver or gold finds no DPC column at their metal level.

Premiums are harder to compare. The carrier’s chart shows monthly premiums only as dollar signs, one ”$” for both bronze columns, and publishes no dollar figure for the DPC plan.

Geography narrows the plan further. Community Health Options offers it only in nine counties: York, Cumberland, Sagadahoc, Lincoln, Knox, Waldo, Oxford, Franklin and Androscoggin.

What Changes Tomorrow

Open enrollment opens November 1. That is the first day a Mending member in those nine counties can pick this plan, and it starts the window in which Mending says it will share how to transition.

The carrier tells current Mending members that if they want to keep their PCP, they “don’t have to do anything” if they switch to the new plan. “Just keep seeing your doctor, and we’ll take care of the rest.”

That promise covers Mending Health network providers. Neither Community Health Options page names a practice. MaineHealth’s Trellis Health, which now lists a second location in Brunswick, still tells Mending subscribers that their Trellis membership “is fully covered”. If you’re a Trellis patient on a Mending plan, the network directory is the place to check before you switch, not after January 1.

One more line to read twice. The carrier’s HSA page says that starting in 2026, all bronze and catastrophic plans “qualify as High-Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs).” Its open enrollment page does not say whether that applies to the DPC bronze plan, so a member counting on HSA contributions should ask before enrolling.