We’ve all heard the same horror story. A Star Rating missed by a fraction of a point. Maybe you’ve just heard the stories, or maybe you’ve lived it. Plans can’t afford to overlook any opportunity to close care gaps and strengthen member experience. In today’s Star Ratings environment, even small improvements in engagement and measure performance can make the difference between gaining or losing a half-Star. As our dear friend Dwight Pattison has said, “Most of CMS’s analysis is done to the sixth decimal place, and every year I witness plans miss a Star Rating by some ridiculously small number. But that is how it works. Scores really come down to very small numbers and very small differences.”
In the 2026 Star Ratings, every five-star Medicare Advantage contract identified by CMS offered SNPs, including D-SNPs and I-SNPs. That’s not surprising considering how heavily SNP models focus on supplemental benefits and member experience. Plans that consistently help members understand and use their benefits and stay connected to care are often better positioned to improve CAHPS scores and, consequently, Star Ratings performance.
In many cases, the deciding factor between stronger and weaker Star Ratings is not clinical performance. It’s member follow-through. A member who never scheduled the visit. Someone who didn’t complete an assessment. A beneficiary who never fully understood a benefit available to them. Those small missed moments will eventually show up in Star Ratings. That’s where BeneLynk’s Community Lynk+ solution can make a measurable difference.
The Power of Personalized Engagement
Community Lynk has long served as the foundation of BeneLynk’s social care engagement model. Through Community Lynk, BeneLynk’s advocates identify members with health-related social needs (HRSNs) and connect them to meaningful resources.
With Community Lynk+, BeneLynk expands these interactions to include targeted outreach about additional benefits and care-related actions, all within a single engagement. During these conversations, BeneLynk’s advocates can remind members to schedule PCP visits, share information about supplemental benefits, and prompt members to obtain annual eye exams or other preventive services.
Rather than layering on fragmented campaigns or repeated outreach attempts, Community Lynk+ integrates these messages naturally into existing conversations members are already having with BeneLynk’s advocates, preventing the overwhelm and frustration that occurs with traditional outreach models, which often rely on multiple disconnected calls and messages to the same member about different initiatives.
If there’s an important message your members need to hear, BeneLynk can help deliver it. BeneLynk’s advocates are experts at building member relationships and having conversations that feel helpful and relevant to the member’s needs. When outreach includes meaningful support, like identifying health-related social needs and connecting members to resources, members are often more engaged and more likely to follow through on important next steps.
If you’d like to learn more about how Community Lynk+ can support your member engagement strategy, contact BeneLynk at sales@benelynk.com.