The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released a treasure trove of new Medicare Advantage (MA) statistics late Thursday. While the new numbers flag a general rise in MA enrollment and drop in premiums, they also reveal a massive expansion of the supplemental benefit programs that have gotten home care operators so excited over […]
Anne Tumlinson Innovations
In November, the Better Medicare Alliance and actuarial consulting firm Milliman dropped their latest report detailing how Medicare Advantage (MA) plans were acting on the expanded supplemental benefits rules federal policymakers established over the past couple of years. Home care executives devoured the report, but came away feeling somewhat discouraged by an apparent lack of […]
As more Medicare Advantage (MA) plans prepare to roll out new home care benefits in 2020, premiums are expected to drop 23% next year, the Trump administration announced Tuesday. The news comes as more and more entrants continue to break into the market — and as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) prepares […]
With 2020 just a few months away, Medicare Advantage (MA) plans are popping up left and right. Home care benefits continue to be a driving force behind the growth. In the past week alone, the 2020 market gained at least two new MA plans. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine and MaineHealth announced […]
The new Medicare Advantage opportunity for home care providers will break out in 2020 and boom in 2021. But while providers are already building the infrastructure and the partnerships necessary to capitalize on this enormous play, three major red flags remain. For Medicare Advantage (MA) to fully benefit from the power of home care, these […]
The Medicare Advantage revolution continues to grow — and starting in 2020, home care providers will reap the rewards. Through a series of law changes over the past decade, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, Medicare’s move away from fee-for-service models and toward value-based […]
While personal care is the smallest segment in Amedisys Inc.’s (Nasdaq: AMED) portfolio of service offerings, the home-based care powerhouse has lofty goals to expand its personal care services into as many as 47 additional states in the years to come. Medicare Advantage is serving as a catalyst for the growth. That’s according to comments […]
Geographic alignment and outside-of-the-box thinking are among the qualities Anthem Inc. (NYSE: ANTM) values from its prospective home care partners in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. An ability to demonstrate the value of in-home care services through data and evidence is also important, Martin Esquivel, vice president of Medicare product development for Indianapolis-based Anthem, told Home […]
For the second year in a row, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has widened the scope of supplemental benefits Medicare Advantage (MA) plans can offer, creating even more opportunities for home care providers to become partners in MA contracts. CMS is also giving the MA program a pay raise to help drive […]
Online home care platform ClearCare announced Monday the launch of a new tool for helping home care agencies better handle client condition changes and track hospitalizations. San Francisco-based ClearCare currently provides caregiver scheduling, billing and other software solutions to more than 4,000 home care agencies in total, including several of the industry’s largest. Its latest […]