In-home support services are the most popular — and arguably impactful — supplemental benefit offered by Medicare Advantage (MA) plans under the primarily health-related category.
That statement was supported by recently unveiled figures from ATI Advisory. It’s now being emphasized even further, thanks to a new data brief commissioned by the Better Medicare Alliance (BMA) and prepared by the actuarial consulting firm Milliman.
“Medicare Advantage continues to lead the way in innovative supplemental benefit offerings that address beneficiaries’ well-being and promote healthy aging in place,” BMA President and CEO Mary Beth Donahue said in a statement.
New information on MA trends comes out every fall, with additional insights released toward the beginning of the following year. Generally, the two data dumps that home care operators care about most are related to primarily health-related supplemental benefits and the Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill (SSBCI) opportunity.
On Thursday, BMA and Milliman reported that the number of MA plans expected to offer at least one of five recently expanded primarily health-related supplemental benefits in 2022 will jump to 824, a 43% increase over the 575 that did so in 2021. That number does not include dual-eligible special needs plans (D-SNPs), which already had greater flexibility.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) made supplemental benefits like in-home care allowable in 2018 for the 2019 plan year.
“When CMS first expanded primarily health-related benefits such as these allowable in Medicare Advantage, many wondered what the uptake by health plans would be,” Donahue added. “Remarkably, these benefit offerings have grown 43% year over year and 134% since 2020.”
The ATI Advisory analysis released earlier this week highlighted similarly strong uptake.
For calendar years 2020, 148 MA plans offered in-home support services. That climbed to 296 the following year and is expected to reach 544 in 2022, according to Milliman and BMA.
Over the last few years, uptake of in-home support services has increased by more than 83%, which speaks to the impact of home-based care, according to Vicki Hoak, executive director of the Home Care Association of America (HCAOA).
“At [HCAOA], we know that home care empowers all those in need to live their best lives, wherever they call home,” Hoak said in a statement. “We are pleased to see the growth in Medicare Advantage supplemental benefits like home-based palliative care, in-home support services and caregiver support – all of which help keep seniors safe at home and sustain families as they age.”
MA plans consider a variety of factors when they choose to roll out new supplemental benefits.
Two very important ones are a benefit’s ability to attract new members and its ability to prevent adverse health events.
Anthem Inc. (NYSE: ANTM) and many of its affiliated health plans offer a home helper benefit. Elena McFann, president of Anthem’s Medicare business, previously told Home Health Care News that such benefits have been especially powerful when it comes to retaining members as well.
“That all goes back to home health and redefining how we play in the health space,” McFann said in October. “We actually have found that our supplemental benefits like the personal home helper are ones that drive increased sales and, by the way, increased retention.”
There are only a handful of instances so far where a plan did not double down on a certain benefit in the primarily health-related category.
The number of plans offering therapeutic massage decreased from 2020 to 2021, for instance. Similarly, the number of plans offering adult day health services is expected to decrease from 2021 to 2022.
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