The most important takeaway from the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Medicare Advantage Study may be that, after all of the controversy that swirled around the annual enrollment period for 2025, plenty of people ended up with Medicare plans that they like.
But the overall satisfaction level fell to 623 this year, from 652 in 2024.
"The primary cause of this decline in customer satisfaction is a 39-point drop in members' overall level of trust in their Medicare Advantage plan," according to a J.D. Power summary of the latest results.
At the highest-performing plans, many of the enrollees reported using digital portals, and the enrollees gave the portals high marks.
The satisfaction-rating program draws on survey responses from 9,000 Medicare plan enrollees in the 10 most populous U.S. states.
For a look at the highest-ranked and lowest-ranked plans in each of the 10 states, see the gallery accompanying this article.
What it means: Early signs are that many people trying to stay in the Medicare Advantage program in 2026 will have to replace plans that have disappeared.
Other people returning to the program will have to pay considerably more for coverage.
The turmoil in 2025 made consumers hungry for advice from knowledgeable advisors.
This year, even financial professionals who sell no health insurance may get a new chance to strengthen ties with their clients if they can give them some basic Medicare enrollment guidance and refer the clients to trustworthy sources of enrollment help.
Medicare Advantage: Medicare Advantage is a program that provides what looks to enrollees like an alternative to traditional Medicare.
The program helps enrollees pay the many deductibles, co-payment bills and coinsurance bills associated with traditional Medicare coverage. In exchange, the enrollees may have to stick mainly with doctors in a plan's provider network and may have to accept efforts by the plan to manage use of care.
J.D. Power: J.D. Power is a firm that rates customer satisfaction in many market sectors.
In addition to trust and happiness with digital channels, factors included in the plan satisfaction scores include an enrollee's ability to get health services in the preferred way at the preferred time; a plan's ability to save the enrollee time and money; whether the plan's products meet the enrollee's needs; ease of doing business with the plan; and an enrollee's experiences with the plan's efforts to resolve problems.
(Credit: Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services)
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