Star Ratings Plummet in 2024 for Stand-Alone Medicare Prescription Drug Plans

Only 2% of Medicare beneficiaries who enrolled in a stand-alone Prescription Drug Plan (PDP) in 2024 will be in contracts with 4 or more stars, compared to 42% in the 2022 plan year and 9% in 2023, according to CMS’s recently released estimates. The average Star Rating for PDPs dropped to 3.11 in 2024 from 3.70 in 2022, with two contracts receiving 1.5 stars.

The distribution change is largely fueled by methodology changes in how many of the Star Ratings are calculated. Known as Tukey outlier deletion, the changes center on removing outlier contract scores when determining the cut points for all non-Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems measures.