Sharp Health Plan is pulling the plug on its individual Medicare Advantage coverage for 2027, a move that will force roughly 17,000 San Diego County beneficiaries to pick a new plan before the end of the year. The health system is notifying affected patients now; UnitedHealthcare offers its own Sharp-focused plans, which Sharp will continue accepting.
The shift was detailed by The San Diego Union-Tribune, which reported that Sharp will stop offering its current lineup of individual Medicare Advantage plans but will keep its group Medicare Advantage plans for local companies and continue accepting UnitedHealthcare plans tailored for Sharp patients. Sharp CEO Chris Howard said the goal is to place Medicare Advantage patients into a structure better suited to the capitation model, under which providers receive a bulk payment per beneficiary and must absorb any costs that exceed it — a system that favors plans with large enrollment pools, according to the newspaper.
The numbers explain why Sharp is leaning on its UnitedHealthcare partnership. UnitedHealthcare’s Sharp-focused plans had about 38,000 enrollees in 2026, more than twice the collective enrollment of Sharp Health Plan’s own Medicare Advantage offerings, which had less than 19,000 members, per enrollment data from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services cited by the Union-Tribune. Howard said scale is needed for the capitation model to work, and UnitedHealthcare will offer three Sharp-focused plans for 2027.
How San Diego’s Senior Health Market Is Shifting
Sharp’s exit adds to a string of disruptions for San Diego’s Medicare population. Scripps Health left Medicare Advantage in 2023, a move that forced an estimated 32,000 members to find new doctors, and UC San Diego Health dropped access to its university medical group primary care network earlier in 2026, according to the Union-Tribune’s reporting. Pat Salas also highlighted cuts to plans from Aetna and Central Health, changes that will force about 8,000 Medicare Advantage enrollees to seek new coverage this fall…