Ensuring that Medicare works for seniors and people with disabilities, and that people with Medicare have access to robust, stable, high-quality, and affordable options for the coverage they need, are top priorities for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). As part of this, CMS is focused on continuing to improve the quality of the MA and Part D programs. As the results for the 2025 Star Ratings demonstrate, CMS continues to implement enhancements to the MA and Part D Star Ratings program to promote continual quality improvement to help ensure that Medicare enrollees receive high quality care and to incentivize plans to continue to strive for higher quality.
CMS publishes the Medicare Advantage (Medicare Part C) and Medicare Part D Star Ratings each year to measure the quality of health and prescription drug services received by consumers enrolled in MA and Part D prescription drug plans (PDPs or Part D plans). The Star Ratings system helps people with Medicare compare the quality of Medicare health and drug plans being offered so they are empowered to make the best health care decisions for themselves. An important component of this effort is to provide people with Medicare and their caregivers with meaningful information about quality, alongside information about benefits and costs, to assist them in comparing plans and choosing the Medicare coverage option that best fits their health needs.
The 2025 Stars being announced today appear on Medicare Plan Finder for 2025 open enrollment and will impact 2026 MA quality bonus payments.
Highlights of Contract Performance in 2025 Star Ratings
Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug (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. For each measure, CMS establishes thresholds called “cut points” that are used to determine whether each contract’s performance for that measure receives a 1-, 2-, 3-, 4- or 5-star rating.
Changes in the Methodology for the 2025 Star Ratings
There were no major methodological changes in the 2025 Star Ratings. Minor methodological changes were included for 2025, such as increasing the weight for the Part C Plan All-Cause Readmissions measure from one to three.[1] Since the Part D Medicare Plan Finder measure is no longer treated as a new measure, bi-directional guardrails are now applied, as needed, starting with the 2025 Star Ratings to this measure after mean resampling if cut points change by more than 5%. Guardrails were not applied to this measure for the 2025 Star Ratings since cut points did not move more than 5%.
CMS made changes to the methodology through previous notice and comment rulemaking for the 2024 Star Ratings that affect the 2025 Star Ratings. In the Medicare Program, Contract Year 2021 Policy and Technical Changes to the Medicare Advantage Program, Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Program, and Medicare Cost Plan Program Final Rule (85 FR 33796)[2], we added Tukey outlier deletion to the hierarchical clustering methodology that is used to set cut points for non-Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) measures, in order to improve accuracy and stability of the Star Ratings measure-level cut points (i.e., the performance level needed to receive a certain measure star), starting with the 2024 Star Ratings. Tukey outlier deletion results in more accurate cut points that are not influenced by a small number of extreme outliers, often at the low end of performance. When a small number of extreme outliers at the low end of performance are dropped, there is an upward shift in cut points because the few outliers on the lower end of performance are no longer having an undue influence on cut points. However, in some cases, guardrails, which limit upward and downward movement of cut points year-over-year, prevent cut point adjustments from reflecting the full impact of Tukey outlier deletion.
Rating Distribution[3]
The last row in Table 1 shows the trend in the average overall Star Ratings weighted by enrollment for MA-PDs from 2022 to 2025 after any adjustments for extreme and uncontrollable circumstances.[4]
Changes in Star Ratings year-over-year are normal and expected and vary by measure. The Star Ratings are intended to capture a contract’s performance during the measurement period and some contracts perform better or worse in different years. The cut points are recalculated each year based on performance during the measurement period. Many of the measure-level cut points increased from the 2024 Star Ratings, meaning that, overall, contracts had to achieve higher performance on these measures to receive a high Star Rating. Increases in measure-level cut points result both from contracts’ performance and from CMS policies that continue to drive quality improvement for the program. The changes in measure-level cut points for 2025 Star Ratings were impacted by various factors, including:
Note: The information included in this Fact Sheet is based on the 2025 Star Ratings published on the Medicare Plan Finder on October 10, 2024. For details on the Medicare Advantage (MA) and Part D Star Ratings, please refer to the 2025 Part C & D Star Ratings Technical Notes available at http://go.cms.gov/partcanddstarratings.
Source: https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/2025-medicare-advantage-and-part-d-star-ratings
