Trends in Physician Networks in the Marketplace in 2016

In this brief, we describe the breadth of physician provider networks offered on the health insurance marketplaces in 2016, and present differences by plan type, physician specialty, and state. We also compare networks in 2016 to those in 2014. We find little change in overall prevalence of narrow networks, but we find important geographic shifts and a trend towards x-small networks among plans with narrow networks. We discuss the policy implications of our findings for consumers, regulators, and health plans.