The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) released its annual health plan ratings, highlighting that 18 plans earned top marks, up 64% from 2025.
The 5-star rated plans include nine commercial plans, five Medicare Advantage plans and four Medicaid plans. They included UPMC Health Plan, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and several Kaiser Foundation Health Plans.
An additional 53 plans achieved a 4.5-star rating.
NCQA says its annual report and ratings help consumers and regulators assess the quality and effectiveness of health plans.
“The progress reflected in this year’s Health Plan Ratings is encouraging because it demonstrates meaningful improvement in the areas that matter most to patients, such as behavioral health and chronic disease management,” Vivek Garg, M.D., president and CEO of NCQA, said in a statement. “When we measure what matters and make performance transparent, we create accountability, accelerate improvement and empower patients to make informed decisions about their care.”
Overall, the results point to both higher performance and broader improvement across the market, as average quality scores increased and variation between plans declined, according to NCQA. The findings suggest that quality improvement strategies are becoming more effective, scalable and widely adopted throughout the healthcare system.
Behavioral health was one of the strongest areas of improvement, driven by increased investments in mental health services, care coordination and follow-up care. Follow-up after hospitalization for mental illness improved significantly across commercial, Medicaid and Medicare Advantage plans.
Chronic disease management continued to advance, with performance improving on nearly 80% of related measures. Medicare Advantage plans saw significant improvement in kidney health evaluation for patients with diabetes (KED), which increased by 7.3 percentage points. Although chronic care performance improved overall, declines in diabetic eye exam performance highlight an area for closer attention and stronger preventive care, according to NCQA.
The organization reported that average benchmark performance increased across commercial, Medicaid and MA, with gains ranging from 1.6 to 1.8 percentage points. Medicaid saw the broadest improvement, with 89% of measures improving year-over-year.
At the same time, variation between high- and low-performing plans decreased across all product lines, suggesting that improvements were widespread and not limited to top-performing plans.
The ratings evaluate commercial, Medicare Advantage and Medicaid plans using clinical quality, patient experience NCQA’s review of health plan structure and quality improvement processes. Some of the data the NCQA uses are from HEDIS and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Health Outcomes Surveys; Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems surveys; and the NCQA’s Health Plan Accreditation. Health plans are scored on a 0-to-5-star scale.
The NCQA is a private nonprofit focused on improving healthcare quality, accrediting and certifying a range of healthcare organizations.