Radar on Medicare Advantage

Signaling what some say is an unusual move, CMS late last month released a request for information (RFI) in which it encouraged a variety of stakeholders to submit responses to questions related to nearly every aspect of the Medicare Advantage program, from supplemental benefits and social determinants of health to risk adjustment and other payment-related policies. And while that could mean CMS is looking to change multiple aspects of the program, industry experts say the agency is asking the right questions and are encouraged that it signals a willingness to understand the potential impact of program changes on MA organizations.  

Although previous administrations have issued more general RFIs on Medicare and the Biden administration in February released an RFI on Medicaid and CHIP coverage and access, Avalere Senior Consultant Tom Kornfield says he can’t recall seeing one that was so explicitly focused on MA. When asked whether he thinks the request was prompted by a recent hearing on Capitol Hill regarding MA oversight and beneficiary access, Kornfield suggests it’s more likely that CMS is seeking information as it works on a proposed MA and Part D rule that would come out in the fall and contain policies for plan year 2024. “They could be using this opportunity to collect information that could then help them determine what types of policies to put into that proposed rule,” he tells AIS Health, a division of MMIT. And the RFI could generate a lot of feedback, he says.

In a new enrollment transition memo issued to Medicare Advantage organizations with a significant number of dual eligible enrollees in products that are not Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans, CMS appears to be pushing so-called D-SNP look-alike plans to the brink of extinction. But the two-year transition process, which will wrap up for the 2023 plan year, still allows traditional MA plans to enrollee a limited number of duals. And one trade organization suggests more could be done to incentivize MAOs to set up D-SNPs.

CMS in 2019 first began cracking down on D-SNP look-alikes — MA plans that are marketed to duals but are not D-SNPs or integrated products — when it released draft revisions to the Medicare Communications and Marketing Guidelines that stated look-alikes cannot imply that the plan is for dual eligibles, cannot claim or infer that they have a relationship with the state, and cannot exclusively market to duals. A year prior, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) in its June report to Congress had argued that more needed to be done to promote the development of integrated plans and raised the issue of D-SNP look-alikes. At the time, approximately 2.7 million dual eligibles were enrolled in one of four types of managed care plans available to them, yet only 8% of full-benefit duals were in a plan with a high level of Medicare and Medicaid integration. More than 4.1 million individuals are now enrolled in a SNP, of which nearly 3.7 million are in a D-SNP.

When it comes to medication adherence rates, disparities among racial and ethnic groups pose a common challenge to health plans. But leaders in the Medicare Advantage space are working to disrupt the status quo with patient-centric, data-driven solutions that are helping to bridge the gap.

A recent initiative at SCAN Health Plan, a not-for-profit insurer serving 270,000 MA members in Arizona, California and Nevada, sought to narrow the gap between member groups by engaging in a top-down endeavor that wrapped in multiple departments, from human resources to pharmacy. “Our goal was to improve adherence,” relays Romilla Batra, M.D., chief medical officer with SCAN, “and to reduce gaps among African American and Latinx [members].”