Medicare Mambo Monthly: December 2021 Edition

Jackie Lee
FSA, MAAA
Vice President & Principal

Phone: 972-850-0850

Mobile: 972-743-1173

Although we’re nearing the end of 2021 and approaching the 2-year mark since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) recently released the 2019 Health Care Cost and Utilization Report (HCCUR) for the years 2015 – 2019. As 2019 was the last complete year before any effects of the pandemic were felt, these trends found in the HCCUR would likely only have compounded over the last 2 years. What can the information tell us? My latest article, The United States’ Health Care Spending, not only summarizes key points from the report but also dives into some of the latest health care costs trends found for Medicare Advantage, including examining how the potential impact the passage of President Biden’s Build Back Better Act may have on these costs. Click here to continue reading my article.

Figure 1 below is an excerpt from the article and the HCCUR:

Survey #1: Over Half of Medicare Beneficiaries Choosing New Plan for 2021 Due to COVID-19

Survey #2: Older Americans Not Reviewing Medicare Plans, Missing Possible Savings

Medicare Plans polled 1,000 Medicare beneficiaries toward the end of November to see what their decision on opting for a new plan surrounding the Open Enrollment Period (OEP) would be due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Of those polled, 58% will choose a new plan, and of those, a whopping 92.93% are enrolling in new plans because of the pandemic, with drivers such as wanting more telemedicine coverage, wanting cheaper coverage, or just wanting more coverage in general. These are all largely due to the ongoing fear of hospitalization due to the illness. In addition, check out the poll analyzed by MedicareGuide who also polled 2,283 Americans 65+ from mid-November where they found “three weeks before enrollment ends, 67% of the Medicare aged population hadn’t reviewed their Medicare options, missing out on possible savings. An even larger number, 88%, hadn’t changed their Medicare plan.”

In-Home Support Services Becoming Top Medicare Advantage Benefit

Medicare Advantage’s (MA) most popular supplemental benefit was found to be in-home support services, says Home Health Care News after Better Medicare Alliance (BMA) commissioned an article about the Contract Year 2022 MA supplemental benefit offerings. and Milliman developed the Review of Contract Year 2022 Medicare Advantage supplemental healthcare benefit offerings. In-home support services are expected to lead the pack for the CY2022 plans offering one of the expanded supplemental benefits, with a total of 544 plans, compared to the second-highest benefit, therapeutic massage, trailing behind at 160 plans – that’s an outstanding difference of 384 plans. Though this does not include dual-eligible beneficiaries. As for that subgroup of the MA population, dual-eligible beneficiaries in MA are “more likely to report having a usual source of care (91 – 93% in Medicare Advantage, 86% in FFS Medicare)” according to the Better Medicare Alliance article, and “sought preventive care more often and saw lower healthcare costs compared to beneficiaries in fee-for-service Medicare,” stated another Health Payer Intelligence article. Finally, my article last month covered a broader discussion of the MA landscape, including diving into supplementals, agreeing the in-home services saw growth. These reports' sources all conclude and support that supplemental benefits, such as in-home support services and therapeutic massages, are being sought after more often and valued more than ever, despite being a dual-eligible beneficiary or not.

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"The team that came together to create these case studies didn’t have this umbrella of ‘let’s look for something on health literacy and clinical programs’ – it was more of us tapping into our own experiences and things we’ve done or ‘what have you been reading that’s been interesting and new’ that led us to this umbrella.”

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“There are a lot of clinical studies that are out there that show connections between oral health and pregnancy outcome: oral health and diabetes, oral health and heart disease, COPD, stroke… It is kind of like the list goes on and on, and some of the clinical studies are better than others, some studies refute others…”

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12/31/2021: MAO & MMP Chronic Care Improvement Program (CCIP) Attestation deadline
December 2021/January 2022: Expected issuance of the CY 2022 Baseline OOPC Model
01/12/2022: CY 2023 MA and Part D applications posted on CMS websites
01/21/2022: Final day to submit NOIA for 2023
01/07/2021: 5pm ET - Deadline for comments and questions on 2022 display measures
02/16/2022: CY 2023 MA and Part D applications submission deadline
02/22/2022: Deadline for Part D Explanation of Benefits (EOB) 60-Day Comment Period
02/28/2022: Submission deadline of 2021 Beneficiary-Level Medication Therapy Management (MTM) Program Data Memo