Plan discontinued · San Diego County, California

When Does Sharp Direct Advantage End? Every Date to March 4

The letter dated October 2 gives you one date, December 31. There are actually eleven dates between now and March 4, 2027 that decide whether a Sharp Direct Advantage member has new coverage on January 1 or spends a month or two in Original Medicare with no drug plan. This is the whole calendar on one page, with a week-by-week plan and a list of what should be in your wallet on New Year's Day.

Medicare On Main Data Desk

Published October 8, 2026 · 8 min read · Reviewed by Brian Penner

This is the last post in a week-long series on the Sharp Direct Advantage discontinuation. The first one, is Sharp Direct Advantage ending in 2027?, covers what the CMS file shows and the three doors; the others cover keeping your Sharp doctors, Medigap in California without health questions, how the UHC Sharp plans compare, what doing nothing costs and the CalPERS version of the plan, which continues. This one is only about dates. Every date below comes from a federal regulation, a CMS guidance document, Medicare.gov or the California Insurance Code, and the source is named next to it.

The calendar, date by date

Sources: 42 CFR § 422.2263 (October 1); 42 CFR § 422.506 (notice at least 90 days before; the letters are dated October 2); Medicare.gov, Joining a plan (October 15 to December 7, coverage January 1); CMS CY 2027 Enrollment and Disenrollment Guidance § 30.6.10.A (the Special Enrollment Period and its three effective dates); Medicare.gov, When can I buy a Medigap policy? (60 days before to 63 days after); California Insurance Code § 10192.12(c)(2) (the state window begins on receipt of the notice); Medicare.gov, Medicare costs ("Don't go 63 days or more without creditable drug coverage"). Plan facts from the CY2026 and CY2027 CMS landscape files and the September 2026 county enrollment file.

Why there are two Medigap dates

Most of the calendar is federal and applies in every state. The Medigap window is where California adds something. Medicare.gov says a person whose Medicare Advantage plan is leaving may apply for a Medigap policy "60 days before the date your Medicare Advantage Plan coverage ends" and "No more than 63 days after," which for December 31 is November 1 through March 4. California Insurance Code § 10192.12 defines the same right for the same person, someone whose organization "has terminated or otherwise discontinued providing the plan in the area in which the individual resides," but starts the clock earlier: the guaranteed issue period "begins on the date that the individual receives a notice of termination and ends 63 days after the date the applicable coverage is terminated." The statute also requires the plan to tell you about this right "contemporaneously with the notification of termination," which is why the October 2 letter has a paragraph about Medicare supplement insurance in it.

In practice the two windows end on the same day, March 4, and both deliver the same thing: a Medigap application with no health questions, no higher price for your health, and no pre-existing condition waiting period. The California version simply lets an insurer accept the application in October rather than making you wait for November 1. What neither version changes is the start date. Medicare.gov is explicit that "Medigap coverage can't start until your Medicare Advantage Plan coverage ends," so the earliest effective date is January 1 whichever law you apply under. The plan letters, the Plan G versus Plan N choice and the ten California drug plans are in the Medigap post; this post only puts the dates in order.

The Special Enrollment Period slides. The Annual Enrollment Period does not.

The single most useful thing to understand about the calendar is that the two enrollment periods behave differently. During the Annual Enrollment Period, October 15 to December 7, every choice has the same start date, January 1. The non-renewal Special Enrollment Period that 42 CFR § 422.62(b)(1) gives a discontinued plan's members is longer, December 8 to February 28, but CMS's 2027 enrollment guidance ties the start date to the month the request arrives: "Enrollment requests received from December 8 through December 31 will have an effective date of January 1. Enrollment requests received in January will have an effective date of February 1," and February requests start March 1. A request mailed on January 3 and a request mailed on December 29 are five days apart and a full month apart in coverage.

That is also why December 31 appears twice in the table. It is the last day of Sharp Direct Advantage, and it is the last day on which any enrollment request, under either period, produces a January 1 start. After it, the only thing the Special Enrollment Period can give you is February 1 or March 1, and the month or two in between is spent in Original Medicare. Medicare.gov: "You'll be enrolled in Original Medicare if you don't join another Medicare Advantage Plan before your current plan ends." Original Medicare in 2026 terms means the $202.90 Part B premium you already pay, a $283 Part B deductible, 20% of most services after it, no drug coverage and, in Medicare.gov's words, "no yearly limit on what you pay out-of-pocket" without supplemental coverage. CMS had not published the 2027 amounts as of this writing.

The January window that does not apply to you, unless it does

People sometimes count on the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period, January 1 to March 31, as a second chance. 42 CFR § 422.62(a)(3) limits that period to an individual "enrolled in an MA plan." So it works in one direction only. A Sharp member who picks a new Medicare Advantage plan for January 1 and regrets it can make one more change by March 31. A Sharp member who defaults to Original Medicare on January 1 is not enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan and has no open enrollment period; that person's only door is the non-renewal Special Enrollment Period, closing February 28. It is a small distinction with a large consequence, and it is the reason we tell people to pick something, even imperfectly, before December 31.

Week by week, from today

Our own sequencing of the dated rules above. The doctor check is in can I keep my Sharp doctors?; the Plan G versus Plan N choice is in the Medigap post; the 2027 San Diego shelf, including the eight new plans, is in which plans are ending in San Diego County.

What to carry on January 1

The last row of the calendar is the one people forget. On January 1 your Sharp Direct Advantage card stops working at the pharmacy and the clinic, and what replaces it depends on the door you chose:

• New Medicare Advantage plan: the new plan's card, which arrives in December. One card covers hospital, doctor and, if it is a plan with drug coverage, the pharmacy. Keep your red, white and blue Medicare card at home; the plan card is what the front desk needs.
• Original Medicare with Medigap and a drug plan: three cards. The red, white and blue Medicare card is now the one the doctor bills; the Medigap card pays the rest; the stand-alone drug plan card is for the pharmacy. If the Medigap card has not arrived, the approval letter with the policy number works for most offices.
• Original Medicare with a drug plan only: the Medicare card and the drug plan card. Remember that there is no out-of-pocket cap on this combination; that is the trade for having no monthly Medigap premium.
• Nothing chosen: the red, white and blue card alone. It works at any provider that accepts Medicare, but not at the pharmacy for Part D drugs, and the 63-day clock is running. Use December 8 to 31 so this is not you.

One more January item. If you are on a prescription that needed prior authorization from Sharp, ask the new plan in December whether it will honor it or require its own; the 90-day transition rules that apply in Colorado and Utah apply in California too, but the paperwork goes smoother when it is started before the first refill.

What this calendar cannot tell you

Two things are missing on purpose. First, 2027 Star Ratings: the CMS file's rating columns are blank for 2027 and will stay blank until CMS publishes the ratings in October, so any site showing a 2027 star count for a San Diego plan is showing the 2026 number. Second, copays and drug tiers: the landscape file carries premiums, out-of-pocket maximums and Part D deductibles, not office-visit copays or formulary tiers, which live in each plan's Evidence of Coverage and in Medicare Plan Finder's drug lookup. The calendar tells you when to decide; those two documents tell you what to decide. And a reminder that runs through every post in this series: the plan is being discontinued, Sharp's hospitals and doctors are not, and you are not losing Medicare. Medicare.gov's description of the notice puts the whole obligation in one sentence: "You must look for a new plan for coverage next year."

What I would do this week

1. Put four dates on the refrigerator: October 15, December 7, December 31 and March 4. Everything else in the table hangs off those.
2. Identify your plan from your card, Gold, Platinum, VIP or VIP Plus, and your medical group, Rees-Stealy or Sharp Community. The 2027 network answer depends on both.
3. Pick a door by Halloween. Medicare Advantage, Medigap plus a drug plan, or a drug plan only. The comparison posts linked above are built for exactly that decision.
4. Enroll in the first week of November, whichever door, so confirmation letters are in hand before Thanksgiving and December 7 is a formality.
5. If it is already December, do not wait for January. A request received by December 31 still starts January 1. A request received January 2 starts February 1.

How we know all this: the Medicare On Main Data Desk frames every article with public data — here, the CMS CY2026 and CY2027 Medicare Advantage landscape files matched by contract and plan ID, the CMS September 2026 enrollment file by contract, plan and county, the CMS CY 2027 Enrollment and Disenrollment Guidance (§ 30.6.10.A), 42 CFR §§ 422.506, 422.62 and 422.2263 as published by Cornell's Legal Information Institute, Medicare.gov's Joining a plan, Special Enrollment Periods, When can I buy a Medigap policy?, Medicare costs and Plan Non-Renewal Notice pages, California Insurance Code § 10192.12 and the California Department of Insurance's Medigap senior alert, all read October 5 through October 8, 2026. Dates are arithmetic on those rules for a plan ending December 31, 2026. 2027 Part A and Part B amounts and 2027 Star Ratings had not been published. Carrier, plan and health-system names are factual reporting, not endorsement; the plan is being discontinued and no member is losing Medicare. This is education, not advice; confirm your own dates with your plan, a licensed agent or Medicare.gov. We take no payment from any carrier to feature a plan.