Which health plans cover Winston-Salem hospitals?

The CMS hospital file lists four hospitals with an emergency room in the Winston-Salem area’s central counties, including Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center, North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Lexington Memorial Hospital. Whether a marketplace plan pays at any of them depends on the network attached to the specific plan you buy — not on the insurer’s name.

Who files marketplace plans in Winston-Salem

Six insurers filed 2026 marketplace plans in Davidson, Davie, Forsyth and Stokes counties in the CMS Plan Year 2026 file: Ambetter of North Carolina, AmeriHealth Caritas Next, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of NC, Cigna Healthcare (leaving after 2026), Oscar Health Plan of North Carolina, Inc and UnitedHealthcare. The lowest-cost Silver plan for a 40-year-old is about $540 a month across the area before any premium tax credit. Plan types filed here: EPO, HMO and PPO.

For 2027: Cigna is leaving the marketplace here. If your plan is from Cigna, it ends December 31, and the plan you move to may use a different network. Choose by December 15 for cover that starts January 1.

Which insurance do Winston-Salem hospitals accept?

The six insurers above are the ones selling marketplace plans here. That is not a list of plans any of these hospitals accepts. Hospitals contract with individual plans, not whole insurers, so the same insurer can sell one plan that includes your hospital 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.

How to check a hospital against a plan

1. Start from the plan, not the insurer. Get the full plan name and its network name from the marketplace listing.
2. Look the hospital up in that network in the insurer’s directory for the 2027 plan year, not the current one.
3. Call the hospital’s billing office and read them the plan name. They can tell you whether they are contracted with that network.
4. Check your doctors separately. A hospital being in a network does not put every doctor who works there in it.
5. Write down the date and who told you. Contracts change during the year.

Or skip all of that: put your ZIP in below and tell me the hospital and doctors. I’ll check them against every plan filed in your county and tell you the date I checked.