2018 Change in Rating by Population

In 2018 Star Ratings, 69 contracts with 4.6M members improved in Star ratings, 89 with 4.1M members declined and 173 with 8.5M stayed the same.  Here, in one image we show all MA plans’ year over year performance.  The size of the box is the 2017 membership and the coloring indicates the movement – Light green is up a half star, dark green is up a full star, yellow stayed the same, and red and orange indicate a decline.  This screenshot came directly from Baltimore Health Analytics’ Map of Medicare, which you are welcome to use at no cost.

Huge Companies

Here are just the largest plans with more than 1M members by parent org.  Please note that the coloring is different- light green is “stayed the same” because none of these contracts jumped a full star.  Among the big guys, Humana had the biggest movement – they recovered from last year’s problem with appeals and several large contracts moved back to 4 Star territory.  United went to 4.5 on its largest contract but slipped from 4.5 to 4 on several other large contracts.  Kaiser quietly moved a step closer to having all 5 Stars, while Aetna dropped a bit and WellCare improved.

Large Companies

Here are the parent orgs between 100k and 1M members.  Overall we see lots of movement – about as many members’ plans moved up as moved down.

Small-Medium Companies

Here’s the parent orgs with 10k-100k members.  Note that one contract jumped a full star, so yellow indicates unchanged. 

Small Companies

Here are the smallest organizations with less than 10k members.  Many of these are regional and emerging plans with their own unique challenges. 

Conclusion

While it “feels” like a net balance up and down, there is movement all over within Star Ratings.  CMS provides all the data for analysis, but we hope that the tools from Baltimore Health Analytics will help you make sense of it.  You can view overall, Part C, Part D or individual measures for different cohorts of plans for the past 7 years.  The tool is free to use – please enjoy it.

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