United Healthcare (UHC) has signaled that it will be exiting California’s health benefit exchange, Covered California, at the end of 2016. While UHC had indicated in its June 2016 Network Bulletin that it would likely be withdrawing from most Affordable Care Act exchange plans nationally, the departure from Covered California is unexpected, as the payor was expected to grow its participation in California for 2017.

UHC first entered the Covered California marketplace in 2016 with approval to offer exchange coverage in five regions of California where fewer than three exchange health plans were already being offered for 2016, including:

• Region 1: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Nevada, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Tuolumne and Yuba counties


• Region 9: Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey counties


• Region 11: Fresno, Kings and Madera counties


• Region 12: San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties


• Region 13: Imperial, Inyo and Mono counties

The number of enrollees impacted by UHC’s withdrawal from the exchange market in California is estimated to be approximately 1,200.

Physicians with questions or concerns should contact UHC Provider Services at (877) 842-3210.