Medicare Advantage

Our analysis of CMS data shows that in 135 counties – accounting for 6 million Medicare beneficiaries – more than half of all Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicare Advantage or cost plans.

In this November 2018 New England Journal of Medicine article, KFF’s Tricia Neuman and Gretchen Jacobson examine the extent to which Medicare Advantage plans are achieving goals with respect to benefits, out-of-pocket costs, plan choice, federal spending and quality.

Medicare Advantage enrollees are encouraged to select their plan based on a number of factors, including premiums, cost-sharing, extra benefits, drug coverage, quality of care, and provider networks, but a potentially overlooked factor is access to covered services and the potential impact of prior authorization requirements. In this data note, we examine the share of Medicare Advantage enrollees that are in plans requiring prior authorization and approval before covering the costs of services.

With Medicare Advantage playing an increasingly larger role in Medicare, the average person on Medicare will be able to choose among 24 plans during the annual Medicare open enrollment period that began Oct. 15, finds a new analysis from KFF (the Kaiser Family Foundation). The new analysis, Medicare Advantage Plans…

In 2019, more than 20 million Medicare beneficiaries (34%) are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans, which are mainly HMOs and PPOs offered by private insurers as an alternative to the traditional Medicare program. This issue brief provides an overview of the Medicare Advantage plans that will be available in 2019, including the variation in the number of plans available by county and plan type. The brief also examines the insurers entering the Medicare Advantage market for the first time and also examines the insurers exiting the market.

In 2018, three Medicare Part D plan sponsors—UnitedHealth, Humana, and CVS Health—account for more than half of the program’s 43 million Part D enrollees (55%) and two-thirds of all stand-alone drug plan enrollees, indicating a marketplace that is dominated by a handful of major insurers, according to a new Kaiser…

This brief about the 2018 Medicare Part D marketplace analyzes the latest data on Medicare drug coverage and trends over time, including both stand-alone prescription drug plans and Medicare Advantage drug plans. The analysis focuses on enrollment, premiums, cost sharing, and the low-income subsidy.