CMS: MA plans see lower premiums, higher enrollment

Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have actually seen increased enrollment and lower premiums, according to the latest data from CMS. Agency chief Donald Berwick MD touted the news during his Feb. 10 testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee. The data shows that, on average, premiums have fallen 6% while enrollment numbers have increased by 6%, to a total of more than 12 million MA beneficiaries.

"That translates into more beneficiaries being in lower cost and higher quality plans," Dr. Berwick said. This appears to conflict with conclusion we drew from a look at CMS claims data in 2008 and 2009, which showed the first growth in E/M utilization under traditional Part B for the first time in three years. Caveat: We rely on the E/M metric because CMS doesn't track MA utilization; this data is proprietary to the actual MA plans, who have not been forthcoming with it.

It's possible that there is no actual conflict; MA plans may see enrollment gains but not so much as to wipe out E/M growth in traditional Part B utilization. The E/M growth in traditional Part B could also simply be the result of more E/M visits being billed.

I'll take a closer look at this data in a longer story that will run in a future Part B News issue. Just curious -- has anyone locally seen an increase in the number of MA patients?