Medicare Advantage Private Plans: Assessing the Value for Elderly and Disabled Beneficiaries

Award Amount: $267,511
Approval Date: November 14, 2007
Start Date: January 1, 2008
End Date: June 30, 2009
George Washington University
Department of Health Services Management and Policy
2021 K Street, N.W., Suite 800
Washington, Dist. of Columbia 20006
Principal Investigator: Brian Biles, M.D., M.P.H.

Under Medicare Advantage, private plans in every county are paid more than what their enrollees would be expected to cost in traditional fee-for-service Medicare. Questions have been raised about what the Medicare program and its enrollees get for these extra payments, which are estimated to total more than $7 billion in 2007. This project will examine Medicare Advantage policies, including those that produce the extra payments to private plans, to determine what additional benefits, if any, those plans provide and to whom they accrue, and what the implications are for beneficiaries and the future of the Medicare program.