San Diego County, California · 2027 Star Ratings

Medicare Advantage Star Ratings 2027: San Diego County Plans

CMS published the 2027 Star Ratings on October 8, 2026, a week before enrollment opens. If you are one of the 17,247 people in a Sharp Direct Advantage plan, or in any of the other San Diego County plans that will not be offered next year, this is the first time the plans you are choosing among have carried a current rating. Here is every 2027 contract in the county with its new rating beside last year's, where the county's members actually sit, what happened to the contracts tied to the Sharp network, and how much weight a half-star deserves.

Medicare On Main Data Desk

Published October 10, 2026 · 9 min read · Reviewed by Brian Penner, 22+ years in Medicare

How this table was built. The CMS fact sheet says the 2027 ratings were "published on the Medicare Plan Finder on Oct. 8, 2026" and "will impact 2028 MA quality bonus payments." We took the Summary Ratings file from the 2027 Star Ratings data tables and matched it, contract number by contract number, to the 41 Medicare Advantage plans with drug coverage that the CY2027 landscape file lists for San Diego County (Special Needs Plans are a separate shelf and are left out). The 2026 column is the Overall Star Rating field of the CY2026 landscape file; the member counts are the September 2026 CMS county enrollment file. Medicare On Main does not offer every plan available in your area, and nothing below is a ranking by us. It is the government's measurement, reproduced.

The plan-by-plan premiums and out-of-pocket caps for the same shelf are in which plans are ending in San Diego County for 2027, and the Sharp-specific story starts at Sharp Direct Advantage is ending. This post adds the one column those could not have: the rating.

Every 2027 San Diego County contract, rated

A Star Rating belongs to the contract (the "H" number), so every plan sold under that contract shows the same stars on Medicare Plan Finder. "Part C" is the health-care summary, "Part D" the drug summary; the overall blends them. "Members" is September 2026 San Diego County enrollment in that contract's plans that continue into 2027.

Sources: CMS 2027 Star Ratings Data Tables, Summary Ratings (2027 columns); CMS CY2026 landscape file (2026 column); CMS CY2027 landscape file (plan list); CMS CPSC enrollment, September 2026 (members; counts under 11 are suppressed by CMS and not included). "Too new" is CMS's "Plan too new to be measured"; "Not enough data" is "Not enough data available." Neither is a low score.

Where San Diego County's members actually sit

Counting plans can mislead, because two Kaiser plans hold more members than all 26 plans rated 4 or 3.5 stars combined. Weighting the same table by where people are enrolled today gives a different picture:

Our arithmetic on the CPSC file: members of the 41 continuing general plans only, so people in discontinued plans, Special Needs Plans and employer group plans are not in the denominator.

About 61% of those members are in a contract rated 4 or higher for 2027, against the national figure of "approximately 71%" in the fact sheet. Nearly all of the 4.5-star share is Kaiser Permanente, and nearly all of the 3-star share is one UnitedHealthcare contract. Nationally the enrollment-weighted average slipped from 4.01 to 3.99, and the number of 5-star contracts fell from 22 to 15.

If you are leaving Sharp Direct Advantage: the two ratings you will ask about

The first question a Sharp Direct Advantage member asks after the October 2 letter is usually: how do I keep my Sharp doctors? We covered the mechanics in can I keep my Sharp doctors? and laid the plans side by side in Sharp Direct Advantage vs. UHC Sharp Medicare Advantage. At the time, the rating column in the 2027 file was blank. It is not blank now, so here are the two numbers, stated plainly.

• Sharp Health Plan, contract H5386: 4 stars overall for 2027 (Part C 4, Part D 4.5), up from 3.5 in the 2026 ratings. The contract has no individual plan in the 2027 landscape file, so you will not see this rating beside a plan you can pick. It describes the plan you are leaving.
• UnitedHealthcare of California, contract H0543: 3 stars overall for 2027 (Part C 3.5, Part D 3), down from 4. This is the contract under which the three UHC Sharp Medicare Advantage plans, and three AARP-branded plans, are sold in the county. About 38,200 San Diego County members are in the three UHC Sharp plans today.

Three cautions before anyone reads too much into that pair. First, a rating covers the whole contract. H0543 sells plans in 21 California counties, so its score reflects members and medical groups from Sacramento to the border, not Sharp Rees-Stealy or Sharp Community Medical Group specifically. Second, the fact sheet itself says "changes in Star Ratings year-over-year are normal and expected and vary by measure," and that cut points are recalculated each year. Third, the rating does not answer the question you started with. Whether your own physician is in a plan's 2027 network is something only the plan's directory and Sharp's accepted-plans page can tell you. We are not affiliated with Sharp Health Plan, Sharp HealthCare or UnitedHealthcare, and reporting a federal rating is not a judgment about any of them.

The other route, Original Medicare with a Medigap policy and a stand-alone drug plan, has no network and no Star Rating on the medical side at all. The window to buy that Medigap policy without health questions is described in can I get Medigap without health questions in California?

The plans that are leaving, and what their contracts were rated

People holding a non-renewal letter often assume the plan was discontinued because it scored badly. The ratings mostly do not support that:

A selection of the departing plans with the largest county enrollment; the full list with 2026 premiums and caps is in the San Diego County plan-exit post. Member counts are September 2026 CPSC. A contract with no row in the 2027 ratings file simply has no 2027 rating published; that is not a failing score.

The largest group of departing members, by far, was in a contract that just earned 4 stars. A plan ending is a decision about that product's design and economics, which Star Ratings do not measure. Why plans are withdrawn, in neutral terms, is in why is my Medicare Advantage plan going away?

No 5-star plan in California, so no 5-star Special Enrollment Period

You may have heard that a 5-star plan can be joined at almost any time of year. That rule is real, at 42 CFR § 422.62(b)(15): a person "requesting enrollment in an MA plan offered by an MA organization with a Star Rating of 5 Stars" may do so "only once for the contract year ... beginning the December 8th before that contract year through November 30th of that contract year." But the plan has to be sold where you live. We checked all 15 five-star MA-PD contracts in the CMS high-performing contracts table against the 2027 landscape file, and none has a plan in any California county. Kaiser Permanente's H0524 and Clever Care's H7607, at 4.5, are as high as the county goes; both score a 5 on the drug side and a 4 on the health side.

So the San Diego calendar is the ordinary one. October 15 to December 7 for coverage starting January 1. For members of a discontinued plan, a Special Enrollment Period from December 8 through February 28, with the start-date gap explained in every date from the letter to March 4. And for anyone in a Medicare Advantage plan on January 1, one change between January 1 and March 31.

What a Star Rating is, and what it is not

Under 42 CFR § 422.166, CMS scores each contract on "a 5-star scale ranging from 1 (worst rating) to 5 (best rating)," using, per the fact sheet, "up to 43 unique quality and performance measures" for plans with drug coverage: screenings and vaccines, management of chronic conditions, member-experience surveys, complaints and people leaving the plan, customer service and appeals, and on the drug side, medication adherence, drug safety and pricing accuracy. For 2027 about 37% of rated contracts reached 4 or higher.

What it is not: a measure of whether your cardiologist takes the plan, what tier your prescriptions are on, or what your worst year costs. A 4.5-star plan whose network does not include your doctors is the wrong plan for you; a 3-star plan that includes all of them, covers your drugs well and caps your costs where you need them may be the right one. The stars describe how a contract performed on average, across every member, in a measurement period that ended before this year began.

How I would use the rating before December 7

1. Read it last. Doctors and medical group, drug list, out-of-pocket maximum, premium, then stars.
2. Read the Part C and Part D split, not just the overall. Kaiser and Clever Care are 4 on health and 5 on drugs; Anthem's H0544 is 3 on health and 4 on drugs; Blue Shield's H0504 is 4 and 3.5. If you take several brand-name medications, the Part D column describes more of your year.
3. Do not rule a plan in or out on a one-year move. Seven San Diego contracts changed rating this year, five up and two down. The benefits you would actually have in 2027 are in each plan's Summary of Benefits and Evidence of Coverage, not in the stars.
4. If your plan was discontinued, the old contract's rating is history. Compare the 2027 shelf on its own terms, and keep the letter: it is your proof for the Special Enrollment Period and for the Medigap guaranteed-issue right.
5. Look the rating up yourself on Medicare Plan Finder. Any 2027 rating you saw in an ad or a mailer printed before October 8 was last year's.

How we know all this: the Medicare On Main Data Desk frames every article with public data — here, the CMS "2027 Medicare Advantage and Part D Star Ratings" fact sheet and the 2027 Star Ratings Data Tables (Summary Ratings and High Performing Contracts files), published October 8, 2026; the CMS CY2027 and CY2026 Medicare Advantage and Part D landscape files, filtered to San Diego County, California, for the plan list and the 2026 ratings; the CMS CPSC enrollment file for September 2026 for county enrollment by plan; and 42 CFR §§ 422.166 and 422.62 as published by Cornell's Legal Information Institute, all read October 8 through October 10, 2026. Ratings are reproduced at the contract level exactly as CMS publishes them; shares and totals are our arithmetic on the CMS files. Medicare On Main is a licensed independent insurance agency. We do not offer every plan available in your area. Any information we provide is limited to the plans we do offer in your area. Please contact Medicare.gov or 1-800-MEDICARE to get information on all of your options. Not connected with or endorsed by the U.S. government or the federal Medicare program. Carrier, plan and health-system names appear as factual reporting of a federal dataset; nothing here is a recommendation of, or a judgment about, any company or plan. The plan is being discontinued and no member is losing Medicare. This is education, not advice.