The PP2 Survival Guide for Star Ratings Teams

Any day, #CMS will release the much-anticipated Plan Preview 2 (PP2) for the 2023 #StarRatings. In PP2, #MedicareAdvantage plans will receive their preliminary Star Ratings, which are not visible publicly until mid-October. And though we will not see how other plans performed yet, we will all be able to see how cut-points changed for each Stars measure threshold.

This time is critically important for Stars teams. How we message the information in PP2 to our organizations will have great influence on how we perform for our next Star Rating. Below are 7 things to keep in mind.

1. Celebrate everything worth celebrating: measures that improved, measure champions and workgroups that went above and beyond, providers and vendors who over-achieved (and the internal teams that helped make that happen), executives who were your biggest advocates in removing barriers, and key cross-functional partners who kept Stars high on their priority list. Our teams' and our partners' hard work must be appreciated. We ask a lot of them.
2. If you fell, don’t blame CMS. CMS didn’t move the cut-points. Your competitors did.
3. Understand where your focus needs to be in Q42022 and Q12023 to course-correct (or to just keep propelling forward) for 2024 Stars. Focus on incremental improvement. Develop a strategic roadmap. Articulate it clearly and concisely, and do everything possible to execute on it flawlessly.
4. Remember that setbacks can be setups for comebacks. We inevitably will have setbacks. Some years, only at the measure level. Some years, they are more extreme and affect us at the contract level. And some years, we will experience the full effect at the parent organization level. Last year, we all received some help from disaster relief. This year, we are mostly regressing back to normal. Many plans are experiencing that as a setback. Last year was a gift. Don't communicate that the reason you are experiencing a setback is the fact that there is no further disaster relief. The reason we are experiencing a setback is that we have barriers that are keeping us from performing as highly as much of the rest of the industry.
5. Your message and how you deliver it will dictate the sense of urgency your organization has in Q4. We must manage expectations with our executives and our boards. We must under-promise and over-deliver. If you are on the bubble for 2024 Stars (say, between 3.5 Stars and 4 Stars), I promise that it's better to tell your organization to expect 3.5 Stars, to work like crazy for the next 6 months to get over the hump, and then hopefully be positively surprised when you come out at 4 Stars. Surprises are only good when they are positive.
6. How frequently you communicate with executive leadership over the next several weeks should be directly correlated with how much urgency you need from your organization. If your 2023 Star Rating fell, or if you are anticipating your 2024 Star Rating will fall, you should be meeting weekly with your executive leadership. We have helped multiple plans jump a full star in Q4. In none of those cases did we meet with executives less frequently than weekly.
7. Resources are limited, and time is the one that is most limited. Don’t use this concept to avoid placing meetings on calendars. Use this concept to prioritize people’s time. Meetings are important to communicate strategies, decide on priorities, report on progress, and remove barriers. Don't be afraid to meet often if performance is not where it needs to be. Meetings, if managed well, will improve performance and not take away from it.

Good luck with PP2!

Rex Wallace Consulting, LLC (RWC) is a Quality Improvement consulting firm with deep expertise in helping Medicare Advantage plans improve their Star Ratings.