From new star ratings to market departures, these are seven recent Blue Cross Blue Shield updates involving Medicare Advantage:
1. Florida Blue's Medicare Advantage plans will be out of network with Fort Myers, Fla.-based Lee Health's Physician Group primary care providers in September.
2. BCBS Michigan's Medicare Advantage President, Krischa Winright, sat down with Becker's in July to discuss the 'critical success factor' behind the company's MA program.
3. Forty payers received revised star ratings from CMS after the agency recalculated its star ratings for 2024, including BCBS Minnesota, Kansas City, North Carolina, Michigan, Independence, and Elevance Health, HCSC and Premera.
4. "Our Medicare Advantage cost trends have faced the same headwinds felt across the industry," BCBS Minnesota told the Star Tribune in June. The insurer reported a 40% decrease in operating profits in 2023, falling from $173.2 million to $103.7 million.
5. Elevance Health, parent of 14 BCBS companies, told investors in June that the company is comfortable predicting "market-plus" growth for its MA business in 2025.
6. BCBS Kansas City said in May it would leave the Medicare Advantage market at the end of 2024, citing low membership that "does not provide the scale required to successfully compete in today's complex and continuously changing market."
7. Highmark Health, which operates BCBS affiliates in four states, noted in its first quarter financial report that its health plans continue "to navigate industry-wide headwinds related to increased utilization of medical services, primarily within the Medicare Advantage business."