Court Ruling Prompts Medicare Advantage Star Rating Overhaul

A federal judge in Texas ruled in favor of UnitedHealth Group, stating that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) improperly included a disputed phone call in calculating UnitedHealth's Medicare Advantage star ratings. As a result, CMS must revise UnitedHealth's 2025 ratings by removing the call center metric and publish the updated ratings in the Medicare Plan Finder. This decision comes as UnitedHealth sought an expedited ruling to influence Medicare's open enrollment period, which ends on December 7.