For Home Care Providers Still Invested In Medicare Advantage Business, Patience Is Wearing Thin

Home Health Care News | By Andrew Donlan
 
Around 2019, Medicare Advantage (MA) was all the rave among home care providers. 

That’s because, in 2018 and 2019, two pathways opened for MA plans to provide more benefits to beneficiaries: the primarily health-related benefit pathway and the Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill (SSBCI) pathway. 
 
Included in those were plenty of areas of opportunity for personal home care providers to step in and become more involved with the Medicare dollar. In-home support services (IHSS), namely, were a popular benefit that providers theoretically stood to benefit from. 

But, since 2019, that optimism around MA has waned for most. The return on the investment has largely not been there. 
 
For one, providers that generally dealt with private-pay clients were met with less favorable rates in MA, plus less reliable scheduling for their caregivers. Then, particularly recently, the growth in plans’ adoption of SSBCI and primarily-health related benefits has slowed. 

This year, for instance, 867 plans are offering IHSS as a supplemental benefit, according to the research and advisory firm ATI Advisory. That’s a significant drop off from 2023, when 1,308 plans were offering the benefit. 

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