The honest answer is that it depends on the individual plan rather than the carrier, and it can change during the year. Here is what is actually knowable, and how to settle it for your own plan in about ten minutes.
Free hospital check
Is Licking Memorial in the plan you’re looking at? I’ll check for you.
Enter your ZIP code. I’ll check Licking Memorial, and any doctors you name, against every 2026 marketplace plan filed in your county, then send you the plans that include them and the date I checked. It costs nothing, and I only call if you ask me to.
- Your ZIP code
- Who to check — Licking Memorial is filled in
- My answer, usually the same day
Open Enrollment for 2027 opens November 1. CareSource is leaving Ohio’s marketplace for 2027. If your plan is from CareSource, it ends December 31, and the plan that replaces it may not include Licking Memorial. I’ll check the 2027 plans for you before you choose.
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Insurance at Licking Memorial: the short answer
These 8 insurers sell 2026 marketplace plans in the 4 counties it serves: Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Antidote Health Plan of Ohio, Inc., CareSource (leaving after 2026), MedMutual, Molina Healthcare, Oscar Health Insurance, Ambetter from Buckeye Health Plan and UnitedHealthcare.
That is not a list of plans Licking Memorial accepts. Hospitals contract with individual plans, not whole insurers, so the same insurer can sell one plan that includes Licking Memorial and another that doesn’t. The answer that counts is a check of your exact plan, dated. Get my free hospital check ↑
Searching for MetLife, Delta Dental or Renaissance? Those are dental insurers: dental plans cover teeth, not hospital care. If you want dental coverage too, see dental insurance for individuals.
Where Licking Memorial operates
Licking Memorial serves Newark and Licking County, Ohio, immediately east of the Columbus metro. These are the carriers filing marketplace plans in that market for 2026, taken from the CMS landscape file:
| Market | Carriers filing | Counties with a PPO |
|---|---|---|
| Newark and Licking County, Ohio | 6 | 0 of 4 |
No PPO is sold on the marketplace in any of these counties. Every plan is an HMO, EPO or POS — so if Licking Memorial is not in the network attached to the plan you buy, you pay most or all of the bill: an HMO or EPO pays nothing out of network except in an emergency, and a POS plan pays only part of an out-of-network bill, at a higher cost. That makes the network question decisive rather than a detail.
What is actually filed near Licking Memorial
Plan supply and price vary county by county, and that variation is the part a price-sorted plan list hides:
| County | Plans filed | PPO | Benchmark Silver, age 40 | Family of 4, per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Licking County | 97 | No | $538.05 | $1,720 |
| Franklin County | 130 | No | $538.05 | $1,720 |
| Knox County | 44 | No | $668.80 | $2,138 |
| Muskingum County | 81 | No | $572.19 | $1,829 |
Every plan filed in these counties for 2026 is a restricted network — HMO, EPO or POS. There is no PPO to fall back on, so if Licking Memorial is outside the network attached to the plan you buy, there is no out-of-network benefit. Which plan you pick decides whether your hospital is covered.
Want cheaper coverage? Want better coverage? Not happy with what you have now? Same next step for all three — tell me your ZIP and the doctors you need covered, and I will check Licking Memorial against every plan filed in your county.
PY2026 CMS filed data. Benchmark Silver is for a 40-year-old; the family figure is a four-person household before any premium tax credit. Your own premium depends on age, household, tobacco use and the credit you qualify for. Verify at enrollment.
How many providers each insurer lists near Licking Memorial
Every insurer selling marketplace plans has to publish its provider directory as a data file. I counted the doctors, clinics and hospitals each one lists at an address in each county below, across the 2026 plans it filed there. A dash means the insurer does not sell in that county.
| Insurer | Licking County | Franklin County | Knox County | Muskingum County |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CareSource (leaving this marketplace for 2027) | 1,016 | 13,673 | 426 | 1,450 |
| Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield | 1,168 | 13,166 | 384 | 1,025 |
| UnitedHealthcare | — | 8,531 | — | — |
| Oscar Health Insurance | 762 | 7,635 | — | — |
| Antidote Health Plan of Ohio, Inc. | 742 | 7,403 | — | 1,098 |
| Ambetter from Buckeye Health Plan | — | 6,572 | — | — |
| MedMutual | 114 | 797 | 57 | 65 |
| Molina Healthcare | not counted | not counted | — | not counted |
Molina Healthcare: its directory file blocks automated downloads.
From each insurer’s own CMS machine-readable provider directory, downloaded September 25, 2026. A bigger number is not a promise about Licking Memorial. These files are self-reported, they go stale, and one insurer’s plans do not all use the same network — which is why I check the exact plan against Licking Memorial by hand above.
Self-employed and need Licking Memorial covered?
Yes, but the buying problem is different. A self-employed or 1099 household has no employer plan to fall back on and no HR department to check the network, so confirming that Licking Memorial is in the specific plan you buy is entirely on you. You are buying in the individual market, and in Licking County and Knox County there is no PPO on the marketplace at all. Every on-exchange plan is a restricted network, so there is no out-of-network benefit to absorb a mistake. If Licking Memorial sits outside the network attached to the plan you pick, that is simply the year you have bought.
The numbers above the table are what that looks like here. Benchmark Silver for a 40-year-old in Licking County runs $538 a month, and a four-person household $1,720 — about $20,643 a year with no credit against it. In Knox County it is $669, so which side of a county line you live on changes the number by $1,569 a year.
The second problem is that your income is a guess. Premium tax credits are calculated on what you project to earn next year — a number a 1099 earner, contractor or commission-paid household genuinely does not know in November. Above 400% of the federal poverty level there is no cap on repaying an advance credit, so a strong December can cost more than it earned. If your income moves, update the estimate on your exchange during the year rather than setting it once.
The mechanics of both — how the credit reconciles, and how to claim the self-employed premium deduction so an S-corp does not lose it — are the same wherever you live, so they live in one place rather than being repeated here: the self-employed premium deduction and subsidy reconciliation →
Two things decide your year here: whether Licking Memorial is in the network of the specific plan you buy, and whether your income estimate holds. Getting the first wrong costs you access to the hospital; getting the second wrong costs you a bill in April.
Want cheaper coverage? Want better coverage? Not happy with what you have now? Same next step for all three — send me your ZIP and the doctors you need covered, and I will check Licking Memorial against every plan filed in your county.
“Is it affiliated with a bigger system?”
This is what people actually search, usually assuming the answer settles their coverage. It does not, and that is the more useful thing to know.
Affiliation and network participation are separate questions. Two systems can share a corporate parent and still contract with insurers separately. An independent system can participate in the same networks as its larger neighbours. Ownership tells you who runs the hospital; it tells you nothing reliable about whether your plan covers it. Central Ohio affiliations have also changed repeatedly, so any answer has a shelf life — while the coverage question has to be checked against your specific plan either way.
Columbus prices, a smaller shelf
Licking County sits in the same rating area as Franklin County, so the benchmark premium is identical — but the number of plans is not. Licking has 97 against Franklin’s 130. You pay Columbus prices with fewer options, which bites when you are filtering by network rather than by price, because that filter removes plans fast.
Why nobody can give you a straight list
A carrier is not a network. The same insurer sells a broad-network plan and a narrow one side by side in the same county, and Licking Memorial can be contracted with one and not the other. A page telling you “Licking Memorial accepts Carrier X” is describing one plan on one date, and usually states neither.
Contracts are renegotiated mid-year too. A system and an insurer can part company in March, and patients usually find out from a letter afterwards. That is why the only answer worth having is one dated to when it was checked.
How to settle it for your plan
- Get the exact plan name and network name from your marketplace listing, not just the carrier.
- Search that network in the carrier’s own provider directory, set to the correct plan year.
- Call Licking Memorial billing and read them the plan name. They will tell you whether they are contracted. This is the step that actually decides it.
- Check your individual physicians separately — anaesthesia, radiology and pathology are frequently contracted apart from the hospital.
- Note the date and who confirmed it.
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