Harvard Researchers Confirm Cost, Quality Benefits of Medicare Advantage

What seniors have known for a decade, academics are confirming.  The common sense is that Medicare Advantage delivers high quality and value in healthcare.

• Since its strengthening in the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, the Medicare Advantage program has consistently won high marks from seniors.
• Now, Harvard economists confirm that the MA program outperforms conventional Medicare.
• Their research is reported in a recent Milbank Quarterly.  The article is titled “How Successful Is Medicare Advantage?”
• Healthcare leaders have long pointed to Medicare Advantage’s not-so-secret sauce:  consumer choice and competition at the core of its model.

Medicare Advantage’s consumer-centered, competition-based design is delivering exactly the kind of high-quality, high-value healthcare the doctor ordered.

• The researchers conclude that “on average, MA plans offer care of equal or higher quality and for less cost than traditional Medicare . . . .”
• MA options are private health plans providing coverage through this Medicare program.  The health plans compete to attract seniors to enroll in their plan.
• Seniors have the option of changing plans during an annual enrollment period.  Most tend to stick with the plan they’ve already selected.  But the ability to switch plans makes MA plans work hard to keep their members happy.
• As confirmed by the Milbank Quarterly research, competition among MA plans has driven up quality of care and value for each healthcare dollar.  The competition also benefits conventional, fee-for-service Medicare.  “In counties, greater MA penetration appears to improve [traditional Medicare’s] performance.”

Seniors in Medicare Advantage enjoy coordinated care, preventive services and other benefits that are lacking in conventional Medicare.

• New York Times blogger Austin Frakt recently noted MA’s high quality.  MA beneficiaries get screened for breast cancer, diabetics get regular monitoring, and patients with chronic disease have their cholesterol tested.  MA plan members more likely get flu shots and other preventive care than standard Medicare patients.
• MA plans maintain provider networks, which Frakt points out promotes quality care through better providers.  It’s working.  MA members give their doctors favorable ratings.
• Surveys of MA members have consistently found strong satisfaction.  Seniors, by a 9-to-1 margin, rank MA plans favorably for high quality of care, doctors to choose from, the coverage they receive and the like.

Medicare Advantage provides seniors with attractive coverage options.  Beneficiaries aren’t confined to the conventional, one-size-fits-all Medicare.  MA plans are like the health coverage most retiring baby boomers have had throughout their careers.  And MA plans typically don’t charge premiums and have zero or low co-pays.  You don’t need a supplemental insurance plan to cover conventional Medicare’s gaps if you’re in the MA program.  Just as health leaders predicted, the MA program delivers high quality and value because it hinges on consumer choice and competition.