“12% of Medicare Advantage Plans Will Offer Expanded Supplemental Benefits in 2020,” by Robert Holly, Home Health Care News

“The Medicare Advantage boom for home care is almost here. Ever since the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) first expanded the scope of Medicare Advantage (MA) supplemental benefits in April 2018, at-home care providers have been trying to figure out they fit into a potentially new reimbursement puzzle. … Overall, at least 364 plans will take advantage of CMS’s more flexible MA policies in 2020, according to the Milliman study, which was commissioned by the Washington, D.C.-based Better Medicare Alliance. That’s nearly 12% of the 3,148 plans that will be available to Medicare beneficiaries next year. … The increased number of plans offering expanded MA supplemental benefits is largely tied to CMS’s updated guidance allowing plans to cover anything that has “a reasonable expectation” of improving or maintaining the well-being of beneficiaries with chronic conditions.”

 

LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform):

The home health business should probably curb its enthusiasm for the time being. MA companies will be marketing these new benefits, but it will take time to discern how much is sizzle and how much substance that would actually benefit providers.