How Better Medicare Alliance wants to improve Medicare Advantage: 5 things to know

Better Medicare Alliance, a pro-Medicare Advantage advocacy group, wants more frequent audits and more robust criteria for in-home health risk assessments for beneficiaries. 

The group issued a set of recommendations to improve the public-private partnership for 2024 and beyond. 

Here are five recommendations to note: 

1. The group said Medicare Advantage plans should be audited each year, similar to how CMS audits ACA exchange plans each year. This would ensure certain plans are not audited more frequently and others not audited at all, the Better Medicare Alliance said. 
   
   
2. Audit methodology changes should be proactive, rather than applied to past claims. 
   
   
3. In-home health risk assessments for Medicare beneficiaries should be standardized, the advocacy group said. This would ensure "plans apply consistent criteria in how they conduct in-home HRAs, prevent the use of sub-standard in-home HRAs that are not providing clinical value, and promote access to holistic primary care," the group wrote. 
   
   
4. The Better Medicare Alliance recommends CMS implement more Medicare Advantage marketing guidance. The agency has proposed rules to ban vague advertisements and sales pitches following educational events. 
   
   
5. The Better Medicare Alliance recommends plans choose to offer coordinated supplemental benefits to enrollees over cash benefits. 

Read the full set of recommendations here.