Seniors

With open enrollment underway, Medicare beneficiaries have until December 7th to review and select their coverage for 2024. They also have a lot of options to choose from, as two new KFF analyses show. For many beneficiaries, the first decision is whether to enroll in traditional Medicare (often with supplemental…

Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage is available for people with Medicare who enroll in private plans, either a stand-alone prescription drug plan (PDP) for people in traditional Medicare, or a Medicare Advantage plan that covers all Medicare benefits, including prescription drugs (MA-PD). This issue brief provides an overview of Part D plan availability and premiums in 2024 and key trends over time.

This brief analyzes data from the 2023 KFF Survey of Consumer Experiences with Health Insurance to get a current understanding of how Medicare is working for older adults and younger people with disabilities. The analysis shows that people with Medicare who are under 65 with disabilities experience more problems using their Medicare coverage, including access and cost-related problems, than beneficiaries who are 65 and older.

In response to long-standing workforce challenges in home- and community-based services, states have reported increasing Medicaid payment rates, providing more education and training or leveraging other strategies to recruit and retain workers.

Almost every state reported increasing Medicaid payment rates for home- and community-based services to recruit and retain workers as part of their strategy to address long-standing workforce challenges, according to a new report from a survey of state officials administrating those programs. Most states also report developing or expanding worker…

This brief examines how Part D enrollees’ access to and utilization of the first set of 10 selected drugs could be affected by the new Part D coverage and formulary requirements for selected drugs established by the Inflation Reduction Act and in CMS guidance, as well as the potential for lower out-of-pocket costs.

Family caregivers played a key role in supporting people who used Medicaid home- and community-based services (HCBS) during the COVID pandemic. Many states used new pandemic-era authorities to support and pay family caregivers and maintain services in other ways amid workforce shortages and other challenges. Now, several states are ending…

Drawing from KFF’s 50-state survey of state Medicaid HCBS officials, conducted between May and August of 2023, this issue brief describes how states used the PHE authorities to strengthen their HCBS programs, changes as the PHE ends, and the role of family caregivers in providing HCBS.

Eighty-one percent of nursing facilities would need to hire additional staff to comply with new nursing staff requirements that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed earlier this month, according to a new analysis from KFF. Under the proposed rule, 19% of nursing facilities would currently meet the…