Judge Grants UnitedHealth Group’s Request for New ‘Star Rating’

The Biden administration must re-calculate a potentially lucrative Medicare Advantage quality measure for UnitedHealth Group Inc. after a federal judge ruled it wrongly downgraded the insurer’s 2025 “star ratings.”

In partially granting UnitedHealth Group’s motion for summary judgment on Friday, Judge Jeremy Kernodle of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruled that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services “acted contrary to its own guidelines” by determining that an agency test caller did not “connect” with the insurers’ telephone call center team.

The case revolved around a French-speaking test caller for CMS who dialed the call ...