Nearly a million dropped from Medicare managed care
More than 930,000 Medicare beneficiaries will need to find new managed care plans or return to the traditional fee-for-service program next January when their health plans leave the Medicare+Choice program, the Health Care Financing Administration announced on July 24.
That number is substantially higher than the 711,000 beneficiaries the managed care industry predicted. The number prompted the American Assn. of Health Plans to renew its call to Congress to provide $15 billion in additional funds the group says is needed to save the program.
Although the health plans point to inadequate payments and burdensome administrative requirements as the reasons for the plan pullouts, others argue that plans are already paid sufficiently.
The final tally of about 934,000 beneficiaries who will be dropped from their plans in 2001 exceeds the 734,000 beneficiaries affected as a result of plan pullouts in the first two years of the 3-year-old Medicare+Choice program. About 83%, or 775,000, of the newly affected beneficiaries live in areas where other plans are available to them, if those plans are accepting new enrollees. The other 159,000 will have no choice but to return to the traditional Medicare program.
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