Last week, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) released an analysis of two announcements by the Biden-Harris Administration around Medicare Advantage (MA). The first announcement was the finalization of a rule that would allow the federal government to recoup more money if audits of MA plans showed overpayment. The second announcement […]
Beginning April 1, 2023, states can start disenrolling people from Medicaid for the first time since March 2020. A recent Urban Institute survey found that many people are not aware of upcoming changes. Currently, people who were enrolled in Medicaid at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic are largely still […]
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recommends policy changes to Medicare Advantage (MA) and Part D plans each year. This week, the Medicare Rights Center submitted comments on the proposed rule for 2024. We appreciate and support many of the outlined updates. In particular, we applaud the proposals […]
Far too many people with Medicare have trouble affording their health coverage and care. AARP recently released a report on one set of programs that can help people pay some of these costs—the Medicare Savings Programs (MSPs). The report highlights the value of the MSPs, which AARP estimates will save […]
For dually-eligible individuals, Medicare is their primary insurer and mainly pays for medical services, such as hospital and post-acute care. Medicaid wraps around this coverage, providing varying levels of assistance with Medicare costs and paying for services Medicare does not, such as long-term services and supports (LTSS). While nearly all […]
This week, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) released an analysis of Medicare Advantage (MA) data showing that providers submitted over 35 million prior authorization requests in 2021, which averages out to 1.5 requests per enrollee. Over 2 million of those requests were denied. These numbers reflect the burden that prior […]
This week, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) released a brief examining national and state-level data on enrollment and spending for people enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid, sometimes called dually enrolled individuals or duals. KFF used the 2019 and 2020 Medicare Beneficiary Summary Files and the 2019 Transformed Medicaid Statistical […]
This week, the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO), a watchdog agency that works for Congress, released a report on Medicare Advantage (MA) supplemental benefits. The report found that most MA plans offer some supplemental benefits but that there are limited data on to what extent plan enrollees have been able to […]
