Find Opportunities to Partner with MA Plans, Experts Advise Home Health Agencies

McKnight’s Home Care / By Diane Eastabrook

Home health agencies must leverage Medicare Advantage (MA) plans, not avoid them. That word came Tuesday from a home health consultant during a webinar for National Association for Home Care & Hospice members.

“We are at a pivotal moment,” Lindsay Doak, senior manager for BerryDunn, an accounting assurance and consulting firm, explained during a NAHC webinar highlighting the booming MA landscape. “It is a growing presence state by state, county by county. We are going to see 40 million enrollees or more over the next decade or so in Medicare Advantage plans.” 

The statistics Doak presented during the webinar bear that out. In 2007, MA enrollment comprised less than 20% of total Medicare-eligible beneficiaries. However, by last year the plans accounted for 48% of beneficiaries, according to information attributed to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The number of MA plans has also increased nationally over the past decade. Half of Medicare beneficiaries nationwide will have access to more than 40 MA plans this year, with some having access to 75 or more plans, Doak noted. And UnitedHealthcare and Humana have the largest numbers of MA plan enrollees, with 28% and 18% of the market respectively, she pointed out. 

MA is interested in home health, given recent acquisitions and partnerships between the two, she noted. Home health can position itself to work with MA plans because of its value proposition: it is considered the lowest-cost setting for healthcare, it can manage a mobile workforce and it can lower hospitalization scores.

“We’ve got to get a seat at that table,” Doak said. 

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