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- Janet on What Sequestration Could Mean to Medicare Advantage Claims Payment
- Kristina on What Sequestration Could Mean to Medicare Advantage Claims Payment
- Curt Black on What Sequestration Could Mean to Medicare Advantage Claims Payment
- Margaret on What Sequestration Could Mean to Medicare Advantage Claims Payment
- Jane Wall Medicare Health Benefits Inc on Strange Bedfellows Come to Medicare Advantage’s Rescue
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Tag Archives: ACA
The Future of Medicare Advantage
The Alliance for Health Reform and the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) sponsored a meeting on the Future of Medicare Advantage (MA) on the day that KFF reported that MA enrollment had reached a historic 28 percent of the Medicare population. A major theme of the conference was whether MA enrollment could be sustained or increased in the face of substantial ACA budget cuts in the next few years. The discussion took place against the backdrop of substantially revised Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections in their May 2013 Medicare baseline that modified a prediction that MA enrollment would decline to 11 million by 2017 to a new assumption that MA enrollment would increase to 21 million by 2023. CBO did not explain their shifting opinion and the panelists had no inside information on the CBO assumptions.
Choosing a Call Center? Five Must-Ask Questions
This fall promises to be one of the busiest in history for health insurers with the flurry of Health Insurance Exchanges (HIE), Annual Election Period (AEP) and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Health Care Innovation Awards Round Two
For those of you who applied for the Innovations Awards Program Round One and were denied, or for those of you who didn’t apply, CMS/CMMI is providing you with another opportunity to do so. The program is open to virtually any health organization (the exception is that CMS will not entertain proposals that are primarily focused on inpatient hospital based programs) interested in proposing innovative service delivery and payment models focused on the Medicare, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance program (Chips) eligible populations. CMS will fund those proposals that have the greatest potential for driving health care delivery transformation and innovative pricing methodologies. There is approximately $900 million in available funding.
Impact of the Sequester on CMS Funding
On March 1, 2013, the President issued a sequestration order that cuts $85 billion in federal budgetary resources for FY 2013.
2013 Will be a Very Busy Regulatory Year
CMS is planning to issue a lot of regulations in 2013 that will impact Medicare Advantage (MA) and Prescription Drug Plans (PDPs) as well as plans that will be offered in the individual and small group market Exchanges.
Federally Facilitated Exchanges: The draft application for qualified health plans
In at least 23 states, governors are allowing a “Federal takeover” in the form of a federally facilitated exchange (FFE). Now, CMS has published the first draft of the application that health plans need to complete to become a qualified health plan (QHP) in the CMS FFE. To be sure, the exchange regulation allows individual exchanges flexibility in defining rules and operations, provided they meet the basic requirements. This flexibility applies equally to how CMS interprets its role in operating exchanges in the FFE states.
What Health Care Federalism Looks Like
Insurers are beginning to grumble about the state-by-state variation in Exchange design as implementation bears down on the industry. Fierce Health Payer has a quick summary of the griping here. While I can’t blame them for their frustrations (hey, we have to figure out all 50, too!) I do wonder how they would feel about the alternative: a national exchange whose model may not adequately recognize the dramatic differences in how care is delivered by geography, demography, provider culture, et al. Just look to the Medicare Advantage program and its challenges thus far in creating a quality rating system that does not properly account for the challenges in caring for a rural population.
