Average MA Star Ratings Fall Due to Increased Weights, Cut Points

 by Lauren Flynn Kelly

Although more than three-quarters of Medicare Advantage beneficiaries remain in highly rated plans, roughly 77% of MA Prescription Drug (MA-PD) members are currently in contracts that will have 4 or more stars in 2021, down from about 81% in 2020, estimated CMS.

Approximately 49% of MA-PD plans (194 contracts) that will be offered in 2021 earned overall star ratings of 4 or higher, compared with 52% of MA-PDs (210 contracts) offered in 2020, according to CMS.

Those declines are at least partly due to the increased weight of member experience measures based on Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) and CMS administrative data, observes Melissa Newton Smith at HealthMine, Inc. For the 2021 star ratings, CMS increased the weighting value of the Part C Patients' Experience and Complaints measures from 1.5 to 2.

That combined with the "continued improved performance on the Part D measures" created a downward shift in overall performance, she suggests.

MA-PDs performed worse on nine out of 14 Part D measures, including on all three medication adherence measures and in Statin Use in Persons with Diabetes (SUPD), which contribute about 15% to the overall rating. And 15 out of the 16 cut points for those measures increased, observes Smith.

"When you look at the number of plans that improved, there were 65 contracts that improved and only 19 picked up the fourth star, which is a pretty low number," observes Smith. "And if you compare that to the plans that dropped this year…you can [observe that] CMS is seeing more plans dip below the 4-star level and losing quality bonus payments, which obviously trickles down into the market and changes the competitiveness of those contracts, which really jumped out."

Tom Kornfield, senior consultant with Avalere Health, estimates that the 31 contracts that lost their fourth star collectively cover about 2 million enrollees, which is "not insignificant." And even though three-quarters of the MA population are still in contracts with 4 or more stars, "when we look at the fact sheets from the last several years, there's been an increase — or if it went down it was maybe by a percentage point," says Kornfield.

In an Oct. 8 analysis from SVB Leerink, securities analyst Stephan Tanal observed that Cigna Corp. demonstrated the greatest improvement from the prior year. Anthem, Inc., and UnitedHealthcare both showed downward movement.

From RADAR on Medicare Advantage