“Venture-Funded Medicare Advantage Plans Launch into 2019 Market,” by Thomas Beaton, Health Payer Intelligence “Several Medicare Advantage (MA) plans entering the market for the 2019 plan year are backed by millions in venture capital funding and are planning to compete with established payers by promoting new health plan solutions. The recent uptick in Medicare Advantage competition is not surprising as many payers have experienced billion-dollar profits, high enrollment totals, and health plan expansion opportunities from a booming MA business. Increased participation in the MA market is likely to present competitive challenges between payers vying to attract new health plan enrollees.”
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“2019 Will Be ‘Year to Watch’ for Medicaid as Long-Term Care Drives Spending,” by Alex Spanko, Skilled Nursing News “Increases in long-term care costs contributed to an overall boost in Medicaid spending during fiscal 2018, and a leading health policy non-profit warns that 2019 could be a pivotal year for the program. ‘FY 2019 will be a year to watch how Medicaid’s role evolves on the ground in the 50 states and D.C.,’ the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) wrote in its annual report on Medicaid enrollment and spending, released Thursday.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term
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“Make November The Time to Start LTC Conversations,” by Chris Coudret, Advisor Magazine “November is Long-Term Care (LTC) Awareness Month, National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month and National Family Caregivers Month, making it the perfect time to have discussions about these three often-difficult topics. … In November, myself and many I work with will be wearing purple ribbon lapel pins for Alzheimer’s disease awareness. When people ask about my pin, I’ll share some statistics – while almost 70 percent of Americans turning 65 today will have some need for LTC in their lifetimes, 20 percent will need care for longer than five
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“4 Top Medicare Advantage Mini LTC Benefits,” by Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor “The most popular of the top five new supplemental benefits is a wellness benefit, not a short-term care version of an LTC benefit: 1,653 of the plans the Avalere analysts reviewed will offer nicotine replacement therapy in 2019. For data on the four most common mini-LTC-type benefits, see the data cards in the slideshow above. (Hover your cursor pointer over the slideshow box to see the arrows that steer the slides back and forth.)” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): These mini-benes sure aren’t going
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“Medicaid Overpays Nursing Homes by $1B Per Year, Study Suggests,” by Alex Spanko, Skilled Nursing News “A pair of economists from the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Georgia this month published an extensive analysis of Medicaid spending in nursing homes, determining that longer stays in SNFs don’t lead to better outcomes for residents — and thus the government shouldn’t necessarily pay for as many patient days.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): Right, let’s just throw the terminal Alzheimer’s patients out when they fail to get better. Far preferable would
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