Michael
Brady August 27, 2019 11:00 AM
The CMS on
Tuesday launched a redesigned Medicare Plan Finder to help Medicare
beneficiaries and their caregivers shop for and compare Medicare Advantage and
Part D plans, the first major update to the most popular tool in a decade.
The changes
include an improved mobile-friendly design, as 25% of beneficiaries accessed
the plan finder via mobile devices in 2018 and that number is growing quickly.
The new plan
finder will also inform users if a generic version of their prescription drug
is available, which is likely an effort to address the high out-of-pocket costs
for prescription drugs. Beneficiaries and their caregivers can use the new tool
to enroll in Medicare Advantage and Part D plans, as well as view and compare
the supplemental benefits of Medicare Advantage plans.
The new plan
finder is part of the CMS' eMedicare initiative announced last year, which
promises to deliver a streamlined user experience for Medicare beneficiaries.
"President
Trump has made it clear that he wants to protect and strengthen Medicare,"
CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a statement. "The redesigned
Medicare Plan Finder is another example of how CMS is empowering beneficiaries
with price and quality information to take advantage of lower rates and new
benefits in MA and Part D."
The new tool will
let users compare prices among original Medicare, Medicare prescription drug
plans, Medicare Supplement Insurance (or Medigap) policies and Medicare
Advantage plans. Users will have access to plan costs and benefits.
Users can also
create a personalized drug list and view drug coverage across Medicare Part D
plans. If someone is already a Medicare recipient, their recent claims data
will be used to prefill a personalized drug list that they can modify based on
recent changes in their medical care.
The old Medicare
Plan Finder will be available through the end of September. The CMS will
continue to gather feedback about the new tool as the Medicare open enrollment
period approaches. Open enrollment begins October 15.
The CMS also said
that it would release by the end of the year real-time Medicare plan data in an
application programming interface format. It hopes that the private sector will
use this information to create new tools that Medicare recipients can use to
make informed decisions about their health coverage.
During a Q&A
session, Verma said the new tool largely addresses the concerns outlined
in a
July report from the Government Accountability Office that found the
old plan finder was difficult to use for beneficiaries and provided incomplete
information. She claimed that ongoing issues regarding incomplete information
are due to a lack of data availability and cited the absence of some Medigap
pricing information as an example.
The GAO report
also found that the old tool did not include an integrated provider directory
that beneficiaries could use to find out if their doctors are in-network. The
new tool doesn't fix that problem because the CMS doesn't have the data
required to build an integrated directory of providers. Verma said that's one
of the reasons the CMS has requested in a pending interoperability rule that health plans provide
information about participating providers in an open API format.
Both the old and
new tools include external links to health plan provider directories.
No comments:
Post a Comment