Sharp Direct Advantage is ending. Here is how San Diego County members keep their Sharp doctors in 2027.

Every Sharp Direct Advantage Medicare Advantage plan stops on December 31, 2026. Coverage does not roll forward. The two ways to stay with Sharp physicians are a UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plan or Original Medicare plus a Medigap policy.

Jeffrey Riego · Licensed Medicare advisor, Carlsbad · Eighteen years with UnitedHealthcare products · More than 1,000 members served · Licensed in CA, OR, WA, AZ, CO, FL, NM, NV, NC, GA, AR, IN, MN, MO, IL, LA, KY, SC, and TX

Sharp Health Plan is discontinuing its entire Sharp Direct Advantage Medicare Advantage book at the end of 2026. That includes the individual plans sold in San Diego County — VIP Plus, VIP, Gold, and Platinum.

On January 1, 2027 there will not be a Sharp Health Plan Medicare Advantage card to keep. Members who do nothing do not stay in a renamed Sharp plan. They have to choose new coverage.

Sharp the health system is not leaving. Sharp Memorial, Sharp Grossmont, Sharp Chula Vista, Sharp Coronado, Sharp Mary Birch, Sharp Tri-City in Oceanside, Sharp Rees-Stealy, and Sharp Community Medical Group will still be here. What ends is the insurance product Sharp Health Plan has been selling under the Direct Advantage name.

For most households the real question is narrower than “what Medicare plan should I buy?” It is “how do I keep the Sharp doctors and hospitals I already use?” In this county that answer has two practical doors: UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage built around Sharp medical groups, or Original Medicare with a Medicare Supplement.

Why those two doors, and not a third Advantage logo

Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community accepts Original Medicare, every Medigap plan, Sharp Direct Advantage, and UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage HMO. It does not accept every Medicare Advantage plan sold in San Diego County. A $0-premium mailer from another carrier can look fine until January, when the internist in La Mesa or the cardiologist at Sharp Memorial is out of network.

UnitedHealthcare is the carrier that has already built Medicare Advantage contracts around Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community Medical Group. That is why a move from Sharp Direct Advantage to a UHC Sharp plan can keep the same medical group. It is also why grabbing any other Advantage plan, even a well-known national name, is how people lose Sharp by accident.

The other door does not depend on a Sharp-branded network at all. Original Medicare plus Medigap is accepted at Sharp clinics and Sharp hospitals regardless of which company issued the supplement. It also opens Scripps, UC San Diego Health, Palomar, and any other physician in the country who takes Medicare.

What ending a plan actually gives you

When a Medicare Advantage plan is discontinued, Medicare does not leave you stranded. It gives you a Special Enrollment Period so you can replace the coverage. For a plan that ends on January 1, that SEP commonly runs from December 8 through the end of February. You also have the regular Annual Enrollment Period from October 15 through December 7, 2026, with a January 1, 2027 start date.

Use the earlier window if you can. October and November are when there is still time to confirm every doctor, rebuild a prior authorization, and choose a Medigap letter before January care is on the books.

A discontinued Advantage plan also opens a guaranteed-issue right to buy a Medicare Supplement. The company cannot ask health questions, cannot charge extra because of a pre-existing condition, and cannot turn you down. California then adds time on top of the federal 63-day window. Between the two sets of rules, county residents often have on the order of 123 days after coverage ends to lock in a supplement without underwriting. You can typically apply about 60 days before December 31.

That window is the reason some members should not rush into another Advantage plan. If health history would have blocked a supplement in a normal year, 2027 is the year the door is open. Once it closes, underwriting comes back.

Door one: UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage

This is the path for members who want to stay inside Sharp medical groups and keep the Advantage structure — low or $0 premium, Part D bundled on the same card, dental and hearing extras, fitness benefits.

UHC Sharp plans are not Sharp Direct Advantage with a new logo. They are UnitedHealthcare contracts that use Sharp groups. The doctors can match. The formulary, the prior-authorization desk, the extra benefits, and the customer-service number will not.

Before anyone enrolls I match the 2027 directory to the household, not to the county outline:

• Every primary care physician and specialist, by name.
• The medical group on the chart — Rees-Stealy, Sharp Community Medical Group, or another IPA.
• The hospital the family would use for planned surgery and for the emergency closest to home.
• Every standing prescription, including specialty drugs, at the pharmacy already in use.

San Diego County is not one network. South Bay care usually has to clear Sharp Chula Vista and Coronado. East County care usually has to clear Grossmont and the La Mesa clinics. Metro and I-15 households usually need Memorial, Mary Birch, and the Rees-Stealy campuses along the 163 and 15. Coastal and inland North County households have to say whether the next admission is Sharp Tri-City, Scripps Encinitas, or Palomar. A UHC Sharp plan is built to hold Sharp. It is not a spare key to Scripps or UC San Diego.

Some UHC contracts in the county are HMO. Some are HMO-POS. POS can allow limited care outside the contracted network at a higher cost. It is a safety valve, not a second system. Each doctor still has to be checked.

Door two: Original Medicare plus Medigap plus Part D

This is the path for members who want Sharp doctors without asking a network question again, or who split care across Sharp and another system.

You return to Original Medicare. You buy a Medicare Supplement. You buy a standalone Part D drug plan. Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp hospitals take that combination. So does every other physician who accepts Medicare.

Monthly premium is higher than a $0 Advantage plan. In exchange you get predictable medical cost-sharing, no referrals inside Medicare, and no January surprise that a specialist “is not in the group.” For someone with a complicated 2027 surgical calendar, or a doctor at Scripps Mercy and another at Rees-Stealy, this is often the cleaner design.

Which supplement letters you can buy depends on when you first became eligible for Medicare. People who aged in after January 1, 2020 shop a different menu than people who aged in earlier. The guaranteed-issue right attached to a discontinued Advantage plan is what keeps health questions off that application — if you use it while it is open.

What not to do

• Do not assume the Sharp Direct Advantage card renews. It does not.
• Do not pick a non-Sharp Medicare Advantage plan because the premium is $0 and the envelope says San Diego. Most of those networks do not include Rees-Stealy.
• Do not cancel a January surgery. Continuity-of-care rules exist, but they only work if the new plan is told about the procedure and any prior authorization is rebuilt before January 1.
• Do not spend the entire guaranteed-issue window comparison-shopping Advantage plans and discover in March that the underwriting-free supplement is gone.
• Do not use individual Annual Enrollment dates as a substitute if you are on a group Sharp Direct Advantage contract (SDPEBA or former Sharp employees) until that packet is read. The product is still ending. The replacement instructions in a group notice can differ.

If care is already scheduled for January

A new card does not inherit last year’s authorizations. Inventory every surgery, infusion, radiation series, catheterization, joint replacement, and specialist follow-up dated for late December through February. Confirm the surgeon and the facility on the new plan, or file a continuity-of-care request so treatment continues while the file moves.

Sometimes the cleanest sequence is to enroll in the UHC Sharp plan or the Medigap policy in October so January is uneventful. Sometimes it is to time the effective date around the procedure. The date on the surgeon’s calendar decides that. The brochure does not.