The percentage of Medicare Advantage plans that offer top supplemental benefits will be decreasing, according to a Duke study.
Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy researchers estimated that the percentage of MA plans that offer at least one of the top five supplemental benefits will drop to 7% in 2020, Bloomberg Law reported. For 2019, that number was 11% of MA plans.
Earlier this year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that MA plans would offer more supplemental benefits to support members’ broader health needs, including adult day care services, home-based palliative care, in-home support services, support for caregivers of enrollees, medically-approved non-opioid pain management, stand-alone memory fitness benefit, and home and bathroom safety devices and modifications.
In the first year of expansion, a total of 507 standard MA plans offered one of the five supplemental benefits — which account for about 11% of the approximately 4,500 standard MA plans in 2019, researchers stated. For 2020, 377 standard MA plans offered at least one of the five benefits listed below, which is just 7% of the over 5,200 standard MA plans.
However, the researchers noted that in 2020 many plans will offer multiple supplemental benefits, which is in contrast to 2019 when no plans offered more than one supplemental benefit.
“In contrast, we observe significant increases from 2019 to 2020 in benefits that more directly address the needs of members with serious illness, including adult day health services, palliative care, non-opioid pain management, and in-home support services,” the researchers wrote.
