Note: The information included in this Fact Sheet is based on the 2024 Star Ratings published on the Medicare Plan Finder on October 13, 2023 . For details on the Medicare Advantage (MA) and Part D Star Ratings, please refer to the 2024 Part C & D Star Ratings Technical Notes available at http://go.cms.gov/partcanddstarratings.
Introduction
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes the Medicare Advantage (Medicare Part C) and Medicare Part D Star Ratings each year to measure the quality of health and drug services received by consumers enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA) and Prescription Drug Plans (PDPs or Part D plans). The Star Ratings system helps Medicare consumers compare the quality of Medicare health and drug plans being offered so they are empowered to make the best health care decisions for them. An important component of this effort is to provide Medicare consumers and their caregivers with meaningful information about quality alongside information about benefits and costs to assist them in being informed and active health care consumers.
Highlights of Contract Performance in 2024 Star Ratings
Changes in the Methodology for the 2024 Star Ratings
Medicare Advantage with prescription drug (Part D) coverage (MA-PD) contracts are rated on up to 40 unique quality and performance measures; MA-only contracts (without Part D coverage) are rated on up to 30 measures; and PDP contracts are rated on up to 12 measures. As finalized in previous rulemaking, the updated Plan All-Cause Readmissions (Part C) measure [1] was re-specified and transitioned off the display page into the 2024 Star Ratings as a new measure with a weight of 1 for the first year. Starting with the 2024 Star Ratings, the Diabetes Care – Kidney Disease Monitoring (Part C) measure [2] was retired, and both the Transitions of Care (Part C) and Follow-Up after Emergency Department Visit for People with Multiple High-Risk Chronic Conditions (Part C) measures [3] were added to the 2024 Star Ratings, each with a weight of 1. The weight for the Part C Controlling Blood Pressure measure was increased from 1 to 3 [4].
As finalized in rulemaking in 2020, the 2024 Star Ratings introduced Tukey outlier deletion [5] when calculating the cut points for all non-Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) measures in order to improve predictability and stability in the Star Ratings. Tukey outlier deletion involves removing outlier contract scores prior to applying mean resampling within the hierarchical clustering algorithm to determine measure-level cut points.
Data integrity issues are now included in the description of missing data [6] in the extreme and uncontrollable circumstance (disaster) policy. For disaster-affected contracts with a data integrity issue, the final measure rating is based on the current year.
Rating Distribution [7]
The last row in Table 1 shows the trend in the average overall Star Ratings weighted by enro l l m ent f or MA-PDs from 2021 to 2024 after any adjustments for extreme and uncontrollable circumstances. [10] The change in distribution from 2023 to 2024 Star Ratings is influenced by changes in measure scores in both positive and negative directions based on contract performance and the introduction of Tukey outlier deletion as well as the addition of two new Part C measures (Transitions of Care and Follow-Up after Emergency Department Visit for People with Multiple High-Risk Chronic Conditions), adding back the Plan All-Cause Readmissions (Part C) measure after a substantive change in the measure specification, and retiring the Diabetes Care – Kidney Disease Monitoring (Part C) measure.
Overall Rating
2021
2022
2023