“Medicare Advantage retaining sicker patients with more complex health needs: study”

 

“Medicare Advantage retaining sicker patients with more complex health needs: study,” by Alicia Lasek, McKnight’s LTC News 

“Investigators found that seniors with chronic conditions were not more likely than their healthier peers to disenroll from their MA plans during the study period. There is no longer a clear incentive for providers to skimp on health services as there was in the original MA model, reducing beneficiaries’ need to switch, the researchers explained. The Medicare program now incentivizes the enrollment of a larger proportion of lower-income and minority groups, and people with multiple chronic conditions, they said. Yet, the most vulnerable Americans may continue to lack access to MA plans, the study also found. Low-income older Americans who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid tend to have a higher rate of switching from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare than non-dual-eligible enrollees, the authors reported.”

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

The extra layer of review MA plans create between provider and patient without enough added funding makes managed Medicaid LTC especially problematic.