April 25, 2019

Business Acumen News: Participants for the Medicare Advantage Learning Collaborative Selected The Aging and Disability Business Institute at the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a) and the National Council on Aging (NCOA) are pleased to announce that they have selected 11 community-based organizations and networks to participate in a Medicare Advantage Learning Collaborative (MALC) from an applicant pool of more than 100 well-qualified organizations.  The selected participants will be provided with the knowledge and skills needed to successfully pursue partnerships and contracts with Medicare Advantage plans for home and community-based services and supports. The organizations selected for the MALC are: Aptiv, Inc., Wisconsin Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging, Ohio Coordinated Care Alliance, Illinois Healthy Living for ME, Maine Innovations for Aging (Juniper Network), Minnesota Kentucky Council of Area Development Districts, Kentucky Mass Home Care, Massachusetts North Central Area Agency on Aging, Connecticut Open Hand Atlanta, Georgia South Carolina Association of Council on Aging Directors, South Carolina Selfhelp Community Services, Inc., New York The purpose of the MALC is to provide CBOs with the knowledge and skills needed to successfully pursue partnerships and contracts with Medicare Advantage plans to provide home and community-based services and supports. New flexibility for Medicare Advantage plans provide a broader range of supplemental benefits to people with Medicare who have chronic illnesses, including home-delivered meals, transportation for non-medical needs, in-home support, and more. These changes present an opportunity for aging and disability CBOs to partner with Medicare Advantage plans to more effectively address the social determinants of health. The MALC will help the selected organizations prepare for and seize this new opportunity. The goal of the MALC is to not only boost the skillset of participating CBOs, but also to encourage them to share their knowledge and experiences with other aging and disability CBOs that are just starting to develop these partnerships. Funded by cooperative agreements from the U.S. Administration for Community Living (ACL), the MALC represents a partnership between the Aging and Disability Business Institute at n4a and the National Council on Aging’s Center for Healthy Aging, which is leveraging two ACL funding streams to minimize duplication. Learn more about ACL's Business Acumen Initiative to help states and community-based organizations build networks and respond to delivery system changes, including technical assistance, building business capacity for successful contracting with integrated care entities, and developing pathways to sustainability.