Medicare Advantage Plans Update

Earlier this month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that beginning in 2019, Medicare Advantage plans will cover supplemental non-skilled home benefits that include daily maintenance.

This is the first time that CMA has allowed a service that covers daily maintenance to be eligible as a supplemental benefit. CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a statement:

“Under the new definition, the agency will allow supplemental benefits if they compensate for physical impairments, diminish the impact of injuries or health conditions, and/or reduce avoidable emergency room utilization.

Our priority is to ensure that our seniors have more choices and lower premiums in their Medicare health and drug plans.

We are focused on addressing the specific needs of beneficiaries and providing new flexibilities for Medicare Advantage plans to offer new health-related benefits. This is a big win for patients.”

 

Related Post: A Medicare Savings Program 2023 Story

 

What is Managed Care?

We’ve all heard about managed care, and many of us have first-hand experience with this healthcare arrangement. Managed care is a strategy to reduce health care costs by discouraging providers from performing unneeded services and by promoting preventive medicine.

How Does Managed Care Work?

The basic idea of managed care is that a health plan is paid a flat monthly fee for each patient under its care. If the plan’s costs in caring for that patient are less than the fixed fee, the plan makes money.

But if the patient is quite sick and requires many costly medical services, then the plan may lose money on that particular patient. In this way, plans have an investment in keeping costs down.

Managed Care and Medicare

When Medicare costs started skyrocketing along with the rest of the healthcare sector, Congress looked to managed care as a partial remedy. As a consequence, the Medicare program contracts with managed care plans to provide services to Medicare beneficiaries who choose the managed care option (now called Medicare Advantage).

The managed care plan receives a fixed monthly fee to provide services to each Medicare beneficiary under its care.

Medicare recipients can still opt for coverage under the original Medicare program, but if you choose to be covered by a Medicare Advantage plan you receive all the coverage you would receive under Original Medicare, except without the large copayments and deductibles you would normally pay (unless you have a separate Medigap plan that covers them).

In addition, you often receive coverage for products and services that original Medicare doesn’t cover or charges extra for, such as prescription drugs or custodial care. Generally, you do not need a supplemental Medigap policy if you join a managed care plan. Sound too good to be true? In some ways, it is.

HMO’s and PPO’s

First, managed care plans keep their costs down by limiting a patient’s freedom to choose which doctors and other providers the patient can see. The most prominent type of managed care plan, the health maintenance organization (HMO), maintains a list or network of health care providers (doctors, hospitals, etc.) that their patients are allowed to use.

The plan has negotiated special rates with these network providers. If you see a provider who is not in the network, the plan will not pay the bill, and neither will Medicare.

Other forms that Medicare Advantage plans can take include preferred provider organizations (PPOs), private fee-for-service plans, Special Needs Plans, and Medicare medical savings account plans.

If a Medicare Advantage plan you are considering joining restricts access to providers, it is important to determine whether your doctors and other providers are in the plan’s network.

But bear in mind that managed care plans drop providers from their networks if they start costing the plan too much money. So just because your doctor is a member of the network now doesn’t guarantee that they will be part of the network later.

 

Related Post: Elder Law Attorney Breaks Down 2023 In Numbers

 

Primary Care Physician Funnel

Another way plans strive to reduce costs is to require that all care be funneled through a primary care physician. This doctor makes all decisions about whether or not to refer you to a specialist. You cannot make an appointment with a specialist on your own.

The primary care physician is strongly encouraged to take care of all medical problems and refer you to a specialist only when absolutely necessary.

Medicare does require, however, that Medicare Advantage plans allow patients with serious conditions, such as heart disease, kidney failure, and cancer, to see specialists without referrals from their primary care physicians. Also, routine preventive women’s health care screening must be available without a referral.

How Medicare Advantage Plans Cut Costs

For many, managed care’s most disagreeable cost-cutting strategy is the common requirement that your primary care physician obtains the plan’s approval before you can receive certain medical services. If the plan administrators disagree with your physician that a procedure is medically necessary, the plan may refuse to pay for it.

Plans also attempt to reduce costs by allowing their members shorter periods of hospital and nursing home care than Medicare beneficiaries generally receive. In addition, managed care plans provide fewer rehabilitative services like home health care and outpatient therapies than does traditional Medicare.

“Point of Service” Option

Not all managed care plans are so restrictive, but the less restrictive plans are more expensive. Some offer what’s known as a “point of service” option that allows you to see physicians or other providers that are not in their network. If you go outside of the network, however, you will pay a higher portion of the bill than if you saw an in-network physician.

In addition, a report by the Medicare Rights Center finds that Medicare Advantage plans have serious disadvantages over original Medicare.

The report, based on thousands of beneficiary calls to the Medicare Rights Center, lists nine common problems with Medicare Advantage plans, including problems getting emergency or urgent care, problems getting care while away from home, and problems getting a continuity of care. To read more about the report, click here.

Medicare Advantage Plans and Nursing Homes

A new study has found that people enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan were more likely to enter a lower-quality nursing home than were people in traditional Medicare. The study raises questions about whether Medicare Advantage plans are influencing beneficiaries’ decision-making when it comes to choosing a nursing home.

The study, conducted by researchers at Brown University School of Public Health, examined Medicare beneficiaries entering nursing homes between 2012 and 2014.

Using Medicare’s Nursing Home Compare website as the measure of quality, the study found that beneficiaries in the Medicare Advantage plan tended to enter lower-quality nursing homes than beneficiaries in original Medicare.

This was true even when the researchers took into account the beneficiaries’ distance from the nursing home and other decision factors. Even beneficiaries enrolled in highly rated Medicare Advantage plans were more likely to enter a low-quality nursing home compared to original Medicare beneficiaries.

How Are Nursing Homes Selected?

The study does not draw any conclusions about whether the Medicare Advantage beneficiaries fared worse than original Medicare beneficiaries, only that they tended to enter facilities that had higher re-hospitalization rates and worse outcomes.

The study concluded that Medicare Advantage plans may be influencing beneficiary decision-making around the nursing home selection.

According to Skilled Nursing News, one of the study’s authors speculated that a Medicare Advantage plan “might be incentivized to send patients to a given nursing home regardless of what the quality ratings are, because of a relationship with that nursing home or because they have a lot of patients in that nursing home and can better manage their care.”

Information on exactly why this is happening is “of vital policy importance,” according to the study’s authors.

They recommend gathering more information about Medicare Advantage nursing home claims and re-hospitalization rates and requiring Medicare Advantage plans to be more transparent about the quality of nursing homes in their networks.

Related Post : Myths and Misconceptions of Medicare and Medicaid – Medicare will pay for long-term care such as assisted living facility or nursing home

Additional Medicare Advantage Plans Charges

While many managed care plans charge you no premium over and above your Medicare Part B premium, others, such as those offering a “point of service” option or unlimited prescription drug coverage, charge a small additional premium. In addition, you may be responsible for co-payments.

These are charges plan members must pay out of pocket when they receive certain kinds of care, such as an office visit or a prescription drug.

If you see a lot of doctors or take an array of prescribed medications, the costs can add up. The plan may also only cover medications listed in its “formulary” – the list of drugs it approves.

For drugs not in the formulary, the co-payment may be higher or the plan may pay nothing at all. Bear in mind that Medicare Advantage plans often change the drugs in their formulary, so a medication covered now may not be covered later.

Service Area Concerns

Another consideration is the extent of the plan’s service area. If your plan’s service area is limited, you may lack access to a broad range of providers.  If you travel frequently and need care while away, you may find yourself out-of-network for your plan.

Medicare Advantage Plans Benefits

On the plus side, managed care plans may offer coverage that goes well beyond regular Medicare coverage, including:

• Short-term custodial care
• 100 percent coverage of needed medical equipment
• Chiropractic care, acupuncture, and acupressure
• Foreign travel coverage
• Eye examinations
• Dental work
• Hearing tests and hearing aids
• After-hours care

If you are considering joining a Medicare Advantage plan, it is a good idea to talk with your doctor about his experiences with the plan. How is the plan about approving treatments, referring patients to specialists, or allowing patients to remain in the hospital if they are not ready to leave?

Does the plan frequently overrule the doctor? You might also want to ask the same questions about the doctor’s billing staff.

And, as always, it is important to review your Medicare plan every year during open enrollment (which runs from October 15 – December 7 in 2018) with a professional who you trust. If you need referrals for trustworthy and knowledgeable Medicare specialists near you, please contact us and we would be happy to provide you with referrals.

 

Related Post : Medicare Savings Program Decoded – 2021 Limits

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice and is for general informational purposes only.

Let Us Know How We Can Help!

Please fill in your contact information and a brief message about what you need help with.