A Nov. 10 study found risk-based Medicare Advantage contracts had little effect on healthcare delivery.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics reviewed Medicare Advantage insurer data to better understand the ramifications of moving from fee-for-service to partial-risk contracts with bonuses only and partial- to full-risk contracts with bonuses, plus penalties.
Despite most measures not seeing a substantial difference, both emergency department visits and unnecessary cardiovascular stress testing went down when organizations transitioned to partial-risk contracts.
Given the limited range of data, the study could not evaluate long-term effects of full-risk contracts.
“This isn’t the nail in the coffin for Medicare Advantage risk-based contracts,” LDI Senior Fellow Aaron Schwartz, MD, PhD, said. Contract redesign — such as mandatory contracts and focused reductions in low-value services — could expedite changes in care.
