UnitedHealthcare’s Care Improvement Plus South Central contract (H0710), with 45,252 members, earned five stars for 2027, a step up from last year, when it did not hold the top rating. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services posted the result in its 2027 Star Ratings fact sheet on October 8. CMS lists the parent organization as UnitedHealth Group, Inc.
The contract is the fourth largest of the 15 Medicare Advantage drug-plan contracts that reached five stars this year, behind MCS Advantage (360,519), Clover (155,135) and Triple-S Advantage (120,943). Nobody else in the UnitedHealth Group family comes close in size: its other two five-star contracts hold 8,859 and 6,996 members.
The detail that trips people up is the name. CMS lists two separate contracts called Care Improvement Plus South Central Insurance Co., H0710 with 45,252 enrollees and H2292 with 8,859, and both are rated five stars for 2027 and neither held that rating last year. A member whose plan paperwork says Care Improvement Plus South Central needs the contract number to know which row of the table applies, and a person comparing options needs to know that both carry the same rating.
A five-star contract with 45,252 members can still be missing from a given county’s plan list, and a rating is no substitute for a drug-by-drug price. The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit includes a prescription-by-plan comparison that lines up what each regular medication costs under the current plan and a candidate, so the stars get tested against the actual pharmacy bill.
UnitedHealth Group’s three five-star contracts
CMS’s table puts three contracts owned by UnitedHealth Group on the five-star list, together covering 61,107 people as of October 2026, which is about 8 percent of the 787,962 enrollees in all 15 five-star contracts:
- H0710, Care Improvement Plus South Central Insurance Co.: 45,252 enrollees, new to five stars.
- H2292, Care Improvement Plus South Central Insurance Co.: 8,859 enrollees, new to five stars.
- H5652, Sierra Health and Life Insurance Company, Inc.: 6,996 enrollees, five stars last year as well.
Peak Health Insurance Corporation (H8947), with 12,789 members, is also on the five-star list, but CMS gives its parent as West Virginia UnitedHealth System, so it is not counted in that total.
What the fact sheet does not say about location
The CMS table gives contract numbers, parent companies, enrollment and whether the contract was five stars a year earlier. It does not give the states or counties where a contract sells plans. That is the gap between a headline rating and a decision: a member in a county where neither Care Improvement Plus South Central contract operates cannot join one, however good the stars look.
The ratings do come with scale. CMS rated 508 Medicare Advantage drug-plan contracts for 2027, and 15 reached five stars, about 3 percent. The enrollment-weighted average landed at 3.99, down from 4.01 a year earlier, and about 71 percent of enrollees are in contracts at four stars or more.
What five stars changes for a member and for the insurer
For a member already in the contract, nothing about benefits or premiums changes because of a rating. The stars are a quality signal that CMS publishes on Medicare Plan Finder to help consumers compare plans. For the insurer, the money is larger: CMS says the ratings affect Medicare Advantage quality bonus payments, which for this rating cycle are the payments made in 2028.
Star Ratings are built from up to 43 measures for a Medicare Advantage plan that includes drug coverage, according to the CMS fact sheet. This year CMS added two Part D safety measures and raised the weight of the physical-health and mental-health improvement measures from one to three. CMS recalculates the cut points for each measure every year, and both Care Improvement Plus South Central contracts moved up into five stars this year from a lower rating.
The five-star switch right
People who are in a plan that is not rated five stars and live where a five-star plan is sold have a once-a-year option beyond open enrollment. Medicare.gov’s special enrollment period page says that a five-star Medicare Advantage plan, drug plan or Cost Plan available in the area can be joined using a special enrollment period that can be used only once between December 8 and November 30 of the following year. The page adds that a person can switch to a five-star drug plan only if one is available in the area.
The ordinary window comes first. Open enrollment runs October 15 to December 7, and the new coverage is the 2027 plan year’s.
Checking a Care Improvement Plus plan against the alternatives
CMS’s fact sheet is the free source for the contract list, and the Medicare Plan Finder is where the same ratings sit beside actual plans. A person considering a move into either Care Improvement Plus South Central contract needs to confirm that it is offered at the home address, then compare it with the current plan.
Gather the full prescription list with doses, the names of every doctor and the pharmacy used, and the current plan’s annual out-of-pocket maximum. Check each doctor against the candidate’s network directly, because a five-star contract rating does not say which hospitals or specialists are in it.
Both Care Improvement Plus South Central ratings come from the same CMS table, which counts 15 five-star contracts, 45,252 members in the largest of the UnitedHealth Group pair, and a December 7 open enrollment deadline.
Which Care Improvement Plus contract is it: H0710 or H2292?
A member’s own plan list, not the shared name, decides which row of the CMS table applies, and the choice has to be made by December 7. The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit is the checklist for that situation: a cost calculator spreadsheet that compares plans on cost, drugs and doctors, a prescription-by-plan comparison, and a provider call script for confirming the network by phone. It has 55 pages and an Open Enrollment calendar.
Use the Decision Kit’s doctor-call script and plan calculator on a five-star contract →
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire’s editorial team.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
