Medicare Advantage

Medicare Star Ratings 2027: Greenville, S.C.

Greenville, S.C. — As the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period runs from October 15 through December 7, one number keeps popping up on plan finder pages and mailers landing in Upstate mailboxes: the Star Rating. Those little gold stars are back for the 2027 plan year, and understanding what they actually measure can help you read your options with a clearer eye.

Here's a plain-English guide to what the ratings track, when they come out, and how to use them the way the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) intends.

What the Star Ratings really are

CMS publishes Star Ratings every fall on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, in half-star increments. They apply to Medicare Advantage plans (Part C) and stand-alone Part D prescription drug plans. A 5-star rating signals "excellent" performance on the measures CMS tracks; a 1-star rating signals "poor."

The ratings are not a ranking of which plan is "best" for you. They're a snapshot of how a plan performed across dozens of quality and service measures — nothing more, nothing less. Two plans with the same star count can still look very different when you compare their drug lists, provider networks, or out-of-pocket rules.

What CMS actually measures

For Medicare Advantage plans that include drug coverage, CMS looks at roughly 40 separate measures. For stand-alone Part D plans, it's about a dozen. The measures fall into a few big buckets:

• Staying healthy: whether members get recommended screenings, vaccines, and checkups.
• Managing chronic conditions: how well the plan supports members living with diabetes, high blood pressure, and similar conditions.
• Member experience: survey results on how members rate their plan and their care.
• Member complaints and changes in performance: how often people leave the plan, file complaints, or have problems getting care.
• Customer service: call center performance, appeals handling, and how quickly the plan makes decisions.
• Drug plan quality: medication safety, pricing accuracy, and adherence for common prescriptions.

Data feeding those measures comes from member surveys, clinical records, pharmacy data, and CMS's own monitoring — not from the plans grading themselves.

When the 2027 ratings are published

CMS releases the Star Ratings each October, just ahead of the Annual Enrollment Period. The 2027 ratings — reflecting performance data collected earlier — appear on the official Medicare Plan Finder at medicare.gov when shoppers look up plans available in their area.

That timing is deliberate. It gives beneficiaries a fresh quality read while they're comparing coverage for the year ahead. Ratings can rise or fall from year to year, so a plan's star count in 2027 may not match what it earned in 2026.

A Greenville snapshot

Greenville is in Greenville County, where a range of Medicare Advantage and Part D plans are offered by multiple carriers. Because plan availability and quality measures are calculated at the county and contract level, two neighbors in Greenville see the same menu of plans and the same star counts — but a friend across the state line in North Carolina may see a completely different list.

If you want to see which plans are available at your Greenville address and what stars each earned for 2027, the Plan Finder at medicare.gov is the official source.

How to use stars without being steered by them

Star Ratings are one useful signal, not a shopping shortcut. When you're comparing coverage this fall, it's worth also checking:

• Whether your doctors and preferred hospitals are in the plan's network.
• Whether your prescriptions are on the plan's formulary and at what tier.
• The plan's rules around referrals, prior authorizations, and out-of-area care.
• How the plan fits with the 2026 program-wide changes to Part D — including the new $2,100 annual out-of-pocket cap on covered drugs and the $615 maximum Part D deductible.

Also remember that the coverage gap (the old "donut hole") has been eliminated as of 2025; Part D now runs in three phases. And if drug costs hit hard early in the year, the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan lets you spread those costs across monthly installments instead of paying them all at once at the pharmacy counter.

Key dates to keep on the fridge

• October 15 – December 7: Medicare Annual Enrollment Period. Changes made now take effect January 1.
• January 1 – March 31: Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period, for people already in an Advantage plan who want to switch or return to Original Medicare.
• IRMAA reminder: Higher-income surcharges on Part B and Part D premiums begin above $109,000 in income for a single filer in 2026.