Friday, November 17, 2017

Very Brief Blog: CMS Releases Proposed Rulemaking for Medicare Advantage CY2019

On November 17, CMS released annual proposed rulemaking for Medicare Advantage, with updated proposals for CY2019.

The document (713 pp) is online here.   Comments are open until January 16, 2018.   For an early trade journal summary, here.  

CMS expects beneficiary costs to drop, more choices to be available, and enrollment to increase almost 10% to 20.4M.   CMS is also trying to shift cost savings in drug plans to be passed through to beneficiaries rather than to first benefit PBMs.  The rule handles both Medicare Advantage health plans and Medicare Part D drug plans, although the former usually include the latter.

In other news, a House "Medicare Extenders Bill" - a perennial exercise - is in the works.  This is a recurrent grab bag of small renewable "fixes" to the Medicare Act.  Here.