A federal judge has denied Elevance Health’s request for an emergency recalculation of its 2026 Medicare Advantage star ratings.
On Aug. 27, U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood ruled that Elevance waited too long to file for the emergency recalculation and failed to show that an injunction would prevent alleged competitive harm. In the same ruling, she also denied the government’s motion to dismiss the case. Elevance had argued it needed recalculated ratings by mid-August to resubmit competitive bids for the 2027 plan year, though it later said bids could potentially be revised through September.
Elevance sued CMS in July, arguing the agency treated it unfairly after Judge Wood’s ruling for Clover Health in May. The court found CMS improperly included 20 quality measures in Clover’s 2026 star rating calculation and ordered the agency to recalculate, which increased Clover’s rating from 3.5 to 4.5 stars.
CMS subsequently recalculated ratings for other insurers but used a different methodology that retained some of the measures the court had invalidated. Elevance says the approach left its ratings unchanged across five contracts and will cost it roughly $115 million in 2027 quality bonus payments.
Judge Wood found Elevance is “substantially likely to succeed on the merits” of its claims that CMS unlawfully used the disputed measures, but she ruled the insurer had not shown irreparable harm, in part because Elevance waited months after the 2026 ratings were published in October 2025 to file its complaint.
“The very idea of a preliminary injunction is premised on the need for speedy and urgent action to protect a plaintiff’s rights before a case can be resolved on its merits,” Judge Wood wrote.
The judge also rejected Elevance’s argument that CMS acted arbitrarily by applying a different recalculation method to Clover than to other insurers.
More than a dozen insurers have challenged CMS’s star ratings methodology over the last three years, with SCAN Health Plan and Elevance winning challenges to the 2024 ratings that triggered a recalculation for every MA contract.
CMS has separately appealed the Clover decision. SCAN and Alignment have also filed suit over the 2026 ratings.
Becker’s has reached out to Elevance for comment and will update this article if more information becomes available.
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