Quick Take: Medicaid MCOs and Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) Requirements
One mechanism for ensuring that health insurance provides value to consumers for the premiums that they pay, or that others pay on their behalf, is to require insurers to meet a minimum “medical loss ratio” or MLR standard. The MLR is the share of premium revenues that an insurer or health plan spends on patient care and quality improvement activities, as opposed to administration and profits. In a recent 50-state survey on Medicaid managed care,…