Medicare Advantage

Medicare Star Ratings: fall publishing for Westbrook

WESTBROOK, Maine — Every fall, just before Medicare's Annual Enrollment Period opens on October 15, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes something called Star Ratings. If you've ever browsed plans on Medicare.gov and seen little gold stars next to a plan name, that's what we're talking about. For the 2027 plan year, those ratings are posted this fall — and it helps to know exactly what they measure before you use them.

Star Ratings are not a popularity contest, and they are not a marketing badge. They are CMS's yearly report card on the quality of Medicare Advantage and Part D prescription drug plans. Understanding how the score is built — and what it doesn't tell you — can make your fall shopping a lot less confusing.

What Star Ratings actually measure

CMS scores plans on a scale of 1 star (poor) to 5 stars (excellent), in half-star increments. The overall score is built from dozens of individual measures, grouped into a few big buckets:

• Staying healthy: whether members get recommended screenings, vaccines, and check-ups.
• Managing chronic conditions: how well the plan supports people living with diabetes, heart disease, and similar conditions.
• Member experience: survey responses about ease of getting care, appointments, and information.
• Member complaints and changes in performance: how often members leave the plan, file complaints, or appeal decisions.
• Customer service: how well the plan handles calls, appeals, and new enrollments.
• Drug plan specifics (for Part D): pricing accuracy, medication safety, and adherence for common drug categories.

Notice what's not on that list: the monthly premium, the deductible, or whether your specific doctor is in-network. Stars measure quality — not whether a plan fits your budget or your prescriptions.

How and when ratings are published

CMS releases Star Ratings once a year, in the fall, on Medicare.gov's Plan Finder. The 2027 ratings are the ones you'll see when you shop during this year's Annual Enrollment Period (October 15 – December 7).

The scores are based on data from earlier years — things like claims, member surveys (called CAHPS), and clinical quality measures reported by plans. Because the data is a bit backward-looking, a plan's star score reflects how it performed, not a promise about the future.

Ratings can and do change from year to year. A plan that had 4 stars last fall might be 3.5 or 4.5 this fall. That's why it's worth checking again each October, even if you're happy with your current coverage.

What Star Ratings don't do

This is the part a lot of people miss: Star Ratings are not a ranking of plans in your area, and they are not a recommendation. CMS does not tell you which plan to pick.

Two plans can both have 4 stars and be very different — different provider networks, different drug lists, different rules about referrals. A high-star plan is not automatically the right fit for your prescriptions, your doctors, or your travel patterns. And a lower-star plan isn't automatically wrong for you either; it might still cover the specialists you already see.

Use Star Ratings as one input among several — alongside your drug list, your preferred providers, and the total cost you'd expect to pay.

Why Cumberland County shoppers should still look

Westbrook is in Cumberland County, where Medicare beneficiaries typically have a wide mix of Medicare Advantage and standalone Part D plans to choose from during Annual Enrollment. That's a lot of options to compare, and Star Ratings are one of the few standardized quality signals available across all of them.

If you're weighing choices this fall, Medicare.gov's Plan Finder shows each plan's overall star score right next to its details, so you can filter and compare without leaving the site.

A few 2027 program facts worth knowing while you shop

Star Ratings aren't the only thing new this fall. A handful of program-level rules apply to everyone in Part D and are worth keeping in mind:

• The Part D out-of-pocket cap is $2,100 in 2026 and $2,400 in 2027. Once you hit that in covered drug costs, you pay nothing more for covered drugs the rest of the calendar year.
• The Part D maximum deductible is $615 in 2026 and $700 in 2027 (plans can set theirs lower).
• The coverage gap ("donut hole") is gone as of 2025 — Part D now has three phases instead of four.
• The Medicare Prescription Payment Plan lets you spread your out-of-pocket drug costs across the year in monthly installments, at no extra charge.
• IRMAA surcharges on Part B and Part D begin above $109,000 in income for a single filer in 2026.

These figures come from CMS and apply program-wide — they don't depend on which star rating a plan carries.