Medicare has put a date on the ratings that many members lean on when picking a Medicare Advantage or Part D plan. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says 2027 star ratings will be available on Medicare.gov on or around Oct. 8, a week before Open Enrollment starts on Oct. 15.
The Oct. 8 star ratings: A rating does not say which plan costs least for a given drug list, pharmacy and doctors, and The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit includes a cost calculator spreadsheet that compares plans on cost, drugs and doctors.
Set the Oct. 8 ratings beside a cost comparison before Dec. 7 →
Three dates, a week apart: Oct. 1, Oct. 8 and Oct. 15
The schedule sits in every state page of CMS’s 2027 landscape fact sheets, which say individuals “can begin shopping and comparing plans on Medicare.gov starting October 1, 2026.” The next line puts the 2027 Star Ratings on the site “on or around October 8, 2026.” Medicare Open Enrollment then “runs from October 15, 2026, to December 7, 2026.”
The wording “on or around” matters. CMS treats Oct. 8 as a scheduled target rather than a fixed publication hour, so the ratings could appear a day or two either side. Plan Finder pricing arrives first, which means a shopper can price plans for a week before the ratings show up beside them.
What five stars measure, and what changed in the scoring
Star ratings grade Medicare Advantage and Part D plans on a one-to-five scale built from member surveys, clinical quality measures and customer service. They also affect how much CMS pays plans, which is why insurers watch them closely. The scoring targets themselves shifted for 2027. An analysis by the consultancy Newton Smith Group, reported by Healthcare Dive on Sept. 10, found that about 50% of the cutpoints became harder to reach, 33% stayed unchanged and 17% got easier.
“The average payer leader should be very worried,” said Melissa Newton Smith, the firm’s founder. The concern she describes belongs to insurers. For members, the practical point is that a plan’s stars can move for reasons that have little to do with the size of its premium or the doctors in its network, and the 50% figure is a consultant’s analysis rather than a CMS number.
Why a bigger star count is not a cheaper plan
A member choosing among plans faces a set of costs that stars do not capture: the monthly premium, the deductible, the copay on each prescription, the pharmacy the drugs come from and whether a regular doctor takes the plan. Two plans with identical ratings can differ by hundreds of dollars a year for the same person, and a lower-rated plan can be the cheapest fit for a household with a short drug list.
The national picture around those choices is also moving. CMS’s Sept. 28 announcement puts total Medicare Advantage plans at about 5,532 for 2027 against 5,553 in 2026, and the weighted average premium at $12.00 against $14.37. Those are averages, and none of them says which plan fits one member.
Dec. 7 is the date that binds
The dates that decide the outcome are on Medicare.gov: Open Enrollment runs Oct. 15 through Dec. 7, changes take effect Jan. 1, and the plan must receive an enrollment request by Dec. 7. A member who waits to see the ratings on Oct. 8 still has two months, but a request mailed or submitted in the last days can miss the receipt rule.
In practice the week between Oct. 1 and Oct. 8 works as a preview window. A member can list current prescriptions and doctors, see what Plan Finder shows for each plan, and hold any decision until the stars post, with the Oct. 15 to Dec. 7 window still ahead. The ratings then serve as a tiebreaker among plans that price alike, not as a replacement for the price comparison.
Three dates, three documents, and none of them ranks plans for one household
Plan Finder pricing, the star ratings and the Annual Notice of Change arrive on different dates and answer different questions. Plan Finder, live Oct. 1, shows premiums and drug costs for the drugs a member enters. The star ratings, due on or around Oct. 8, score a plan’s overall quality. The Annual Notice of Change is the letter from the member’s current plan describing what will differ next year. None of the three ranks plans against one another for a specific person’s drug list, pharmacy and doctors.
That leaves the comparison work with the member. A shopper has to enter each prescription, choose the pharmacy, and check each doctor and hospital against each plan’s network, then weigh the total against the star rating. Because the ratings post a week after pricing and the notice comes from the current plan, the pieces rarely line up on one screen at one time.
Comparing plans and switching through Medicare Plan Finder or by calling 1-800-MEDICARE is free, and the CMS announcement notes the phone line is available 24 hours a day. No paid help is needed to enroll or change plans before Dec. 7.
Sorting plans by cost, drugs and doctors after the ratings post
The friction around the Oct. 8 ratings is that Plan Finder pricing, the star ratings and the Annual Notice of Change each land on a different date and none ranks plans against one another for a single household. The comparison that settles a choice needs a member’s own drug list, pharmacy and doctors, and it has to be done before the Dec. 7 receipt deadline.
The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit pairs a cost calculator spreadsheet that compares plans on cost, drugs and doctors with a prescription-by-plan comparison and the Open Enrollment calendar, so a comparison can be worked through in one place once the ratings are out.
Open The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit →
This article was prepared with AI assistance and checked against the cited CMS and Medicare.gov pages.
