Four Medicare Advantage contracts carry the federal government’s low-performing warning icon for 2027, and the largest of them, Aetna Better Health of California, has 9,358 members. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published the ratings on October 8 in its 2027 Star Ratings fact sheet, one week before open enrollment begins.
The other three are ATRIO Health Plans (contract H3814) with 2,000 enrollees, Visiting Nurse Association of Central New York (H9066) with 654, and HealthSpring Life & Health Insurance Company (H7389), a Health Care Service Corporation contract that lists no enrollees. The enrollment counts are CMS figures for October 2026. Added together, the four hold about 12,000 people, out of 508 Medicare Advantage drug-plan contracts that received ratings this year.
For anyone in one of the four, the question is practical: does the icon change what to do before open enrollment closes on December 7? CMS assigns ratings to contracts, not to the brand names printed on plan mailings, so the first step is matching the contract number in the plan’s paperwork, such as H4982 for the Aetna California contract, against the list.
Anyone sitting in one of these four contracts has until December 7 to decide whether a warning icon is reason enough to move. The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit includes a cost calculator spreadsheet that compares plans on cost, drugs and doctors, so a switch gets judged on the member’s own prescriptions and not on stars alone.
Price out a replacement for a low-performing contract with the Decision Kit’s plan calculator →
The four contracts and why each is on the list
CMS’s table gives each contract’s parent company and a reason column that says where the weak scores came from. Part C covers medical care and Part D covers prescription drug coverage. The four entries read as follows:
- H4982, Aetna Better Health of California Inc., owned by CVS Health Corporation: listed for Part C or D, 9,358 enrollees.
- H3814, ATRIO Health Plans, owned by ATRIO Health Plans: listed for Part C, 2,000 enrollees.
- H9066, Visiting Nurse Association of Central New York, which is its own parent: listed for Part D, 654 enrollees.
- H7389, HealthSpring Life & Health Insurance Company, owned by Health Care Service Corporation: listed for Part C, no enrollees.
The Central New York contract is the only one flagged purely on drug coverage, which matters for a member who takes several prescriptions. The HealthSpring entry shows how a contract can keep the icon on paper without anyone currently enrolled in it. CMS says the icon reflects consistently low-quality ratings, not a single bad year.
What the stars measure, and what they decide
Star Ratings grade the quality of health and drug services on a scale of one to five, according to CMS. A Medicare Advantage contract that includes drug coverage can be scored on up to 43 measures, and the overall rating is a weighted average of the medical and drug stars. For 2027 the agency added two drug-safety measures, one on concurrent use of opioids and benzodiazepines and one on use of multiple anticholinergic medications in older adults, and it raised the weight of the physical-health and mental-health improvement measures from one to three.
Against that backdrop the four flagged contracts are outliers. The enrollment-weighted average rating for Medicare Advantage drug plans is 3.99 this year, compared with 4.01 for 2026. About 37 percent of contracts, 188 in all, earned four stars or more, and about 71 percent of enrollees sit in those contracts. The stars also carry money: CMS says the ratings affect Medicare Advantage quality bonus payments, in this cycle those paid in 2028.
What Aetna says about its own ratings
CVS Health’s Aetna unit put out its own 2027 Star Ratings announcement on October 8. It says more than 69 percent of Aetna Medicare Advantage members are in plans rated four stars or higher, and it adds that individual plan ratings may vary. The release does not mention the California contract that CMS flagged, so the 9,358 members in H4982 are not covered by that 69 percent figure.
That gap is the point for anyone in the California contract. A company-wide share says little about one contract’s score, and CMS rates each contract on its own.
Windows for leaving a weak plan
Open enrollment runs from October 15 to December 7, the period for choosing 2027 coverage. Outside that period, Medicare.gov’s special enrollment period page lists a separate right for people in a plan that has had a star rating below three stars for the last three years. The page says that right applies at any time the person is in that low-performing plan. A member who thinks a contract on CMS’s list meets that condition would confirm it with Medicare before relying on it, because the page ties the right to the three-year rating history and not to the icon itself.
The same page lists a different right that points the opposite way: a once-a-year switch into a five-star plan, usable between December 8 and November 30 of the following year, when one is available in the member’s area. CMS counted 15 five-star Medicare Advantage drug-plan contracts this year, so a member leaving a low performer may find a top-rated alternative in some areas and none in others.
Matching a contract to its rating before December 7
The free route starts with the contract number. The tables in the CMS fact sheet list every low-performing and five-star contract by number, parent company and enrollment, and CMS published the same ratings on the Medicare Plan Finder, which it says helps consumers compare plans. Anyone in H4982, H3814, H9066 or H7389 can compare the current plan’s premium, drug tier and network against two or three alternatives in the same county.
Three things are worth collecting before sitting down with the Plan Finder: the full drug list with doses, the names of every doctor and pharmacy used, and the current plan’s out-of-pocket maximum. A rating tells how a contract performed on average. It cannot say whether a particular cardiologist is in the network or whether a drug sits on a cheap tier.
Medicare’s own help line, 1-800-MEDICARE, runs around the clock, according to CMS’s announcement of the 2027 plan landscape. CMS’s fact sheet remains the authoritative list: four contracts, 12,012 enrollees between them as of October 2026, and a December 7 deadline.
Four contracts carry the icon, and H4982 has 9,358 members
A star icon says nothing about whether a member’s drugs and doctors are covered next year, and the window to change closes December 7. The 2027 Medicare Open Enrollment Decision Kit puts a cost calculator spreadsheet that compares plans on cost, drugs and doctors next to a prescription-by-plan comparison, so a written reason to keep or leave the plan exists before the deadline. It runs 55 pages, with phone scripts and a call log for the plan and provider calls.
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.
