Traditional Medicare is More Efficien than Medicare Advantage Plans? So Says MedPAC Chair Hackbarth

Overall, it may be true.

But the good, cost-effective, high-value Medicare Advantage plans (which often are tightly managed by virtue of a risk-sharing structure) are getting a bum rap by being lumped in with the FFS Medicare Advantage plans.

Guess what?

The fee-for-service versions of these plans aren't managed as tightly, and have more cost! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out!

From a recent MedPAC report:

"...However, most of the enrollment growth was in private FFS plans—whose enrollment more than doubled last year. Yet, private FFS plans have no requirement to coordinate care or report quality measures, and their payments and inefficiency are even greater (117 percent and 108 percent of FFS) than the MA program as a whole."