Medicare Advantage

In a memorandum to Medicare Advantage organizations, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services yesterday announced new flexibility related to the use of step therapy in coverage of Part B services. The agency will allow MA plans to impose step therapy requirements for covered Part B drugs…

In a memorandum to Medicare Advantage Organizations, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today announced new flexibility related to the use of step therapy in coverage of Part B services. The agency will allow MA plans to impose step therapy requirements for covered Part B drugs…

Dimon: Amazon/Chase/Berkshire Hathaway Startup Will Start Slowly JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon compared the trajectory of the health care venture he is spearheading with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffet to Amazon’s journey, CNBC reports. Dimon said that the three…

The House Ways and Means Committee today approved legislation (H.R. 6142) that would require the Health and Human Services secretary to develop with stakeholders a plan to reduce waste related to single-use drug vials, and report to Congress on options for any needed legislative action to…

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently opened the advanced alternative payment model module for Medicare Advantage plans. The module will allow Medicare plans to request that their payment arrangements receive “an other payer advanced APM determination” as part of the Quality…

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is making Medicare Advantage data available to researchers, beginning with data on services provided to beneficiaries in calendar year 2015, the agency announced yesterday. CMS said it also plans to release data from Medicaid and the Children’s…

A new report from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Office of Minority Health looks at racial, ethnic and gender differences on 27 clinical quality and eight patient experience measures for beneficiaries with Medicare Advantage health and drug plans in 2015-2016. The data are from…

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services late this afternoon released a final rule that makes programmatic and operational changes to the Medicare Advantage and prescription drug benefit programs for contract year 2019. Specifically, the rule revises program regulations to implement…