Healthcare costs – ScriptSourcing

Medicare Advantage, Part D Plans Get COVID-19 Leeway

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has issued new guidance regarding how Medicare Advantage and Part D plans can respond to enrollees affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

Under the guidance, the plans are authorized, but not required to waive out-of-pocket costs for testing, treatment and other services related to the coronavirus.

The rules come on the heels of many of the country’s largest insurance companies announcing that they would be treating at least COVID-19 testing as covered benefits and would waive cost-sharing for tests.

The CMS made the announcement in light of the fact that COVID-19, which is caused by the coronavirus, has the most severe effects on the elderly population, as well as people with pre-existing health conditions like heart disease, cancer, diabetes and compromised immune systems.

“Medicare beneficiaries are at the greatest risk of serious illness due to COVID-19 and CMS will continue doing everything in our power to protect them,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a prepared statement. She added that the new guidance was aimed removing “barriers that could prevent or delay beneficiaries from receiving care.”

In the new COVID-19 guidance Medicare Advantage and Part D plans can:

Waive cost-sharing for testing.
Waive treatment cost-sharing, including primary care, emergency department, and telehealth services.
Eliminate prior authorizations for treatment.
Eliminate prescription refill restrictions.
Decrease limitations around home or mail prescription delivery.
Increase patient access to telehealth care.

These waivers are aimed at breaking down barriers to accessing care and allow plans to work with pharmacies and providers to treat patients.

Medicare Advantage rule changes

Under the new guidance, if a state of emergency is declared in your state, Medicare Advantage insurers are required to:

Cover Medicare Parts A and B services and supplemental Part C plan benefits furnished at non-contracted facilities, as long as they have participation agreements with Medicare.
Provide the same cost-sharing for enrollees at non-plan facilities as if the service or benefit had been furnished at a plan-contracted facility.
Make changes that benefit the enrollee effective immediately without the typical 30-day notification requirement (such as changes like reductions in cost-sharing and waiving prior authorizations).

The CMS said it would continue toexercise its enforcement discretion regarding the administration of Medicare Advantage plans’ benefit packages in light of the new emergency guidance.

Part D changes

Under the new rules:

Part D insurers may relax their “refill-too-soon” rules if circumstances are reasonably expected to result in a disruption in access to drugs. The rules may vary, as long as they provide access to Part D drugs at the point of sale. Part D sponsors may also allow an affected enrollee to obtain the maximum extended day supply available under their plan, if requested and available.
Part D insurers must ensure enrollees have adequate access to covered Part D drugs if they have to get their prescription filled at an out-of-network pharmacy in cases when those enrollees cannot reasonably be expected to obtain covered Part D drugs at a network pharmacy.
Plan cost-sharing levels would still apply and enrollees could be responsible for additional charges (i.e., the out-of-network pharmacy’s usual and customary charge), if any, that exceed the plan allowance.
If enrollees are prohibited by a mandatory quarantine from going to a pharmacy to pick up their medications, Part D insurers can relax any plan-imposed rules that may discourage mail or home delivery, for retail pharmacies that choose to offer these delivery services in these instances.
Part D insurers may choose to waive prior authorization requirements at any time that they otherwise would apply to Part D drugs used to treat or prevent COVID-19, if or when such drugs are identified. Any such waiver must be uniformly provided to similarly situated enrollees who are affected by the disaster or emergency.

The takeaway

With these new rules and guidelines in place, if you are a Medicare recipient, this news should give you comfort as it should mean reduced costs and access to care and medicine as the outbreak continues.

If you are concerned about coverage, you can contact your Medicare Advantage plan to confirm that it has made the necessary changes to ease the burden on policyholders during the coronavirus crisis.

Study Attributes 25% of Health Spending to ‘Waste’

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that about 25% of all health care spending in the U.S. is attributable to waste in the system.

The study, conducted by health insurer Humana and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, estimated that between $760 billion to $935 billion of health care spending in the country is wasteful.

The study is eye-opening and reflects the need for new approaches in the health care system and how medical care and pharmaceuticals are paid for. It also reflects the tremendous waste caused by complex administrative procedures, which again cries out for changes in the health insurance and care delivery models.

The researchers identified wasteful spending in the following six areas:

Failure of care delivery: $102.4 billion to $165.7 billion

Failure of care coordination: $27.2 billion to $78.2 billion

Overtreatment or low-value care: $75.7 billion to $101.2 billion

Pricing failure: $230.7 billion to $240.5 billion

Fraud and abuse: $58.5 billion to $83.9 billion

Administrative complexity: $265.6 billion

“This study highlights the opportunity to reduce waste in our current health care system,” William Shrank, MD, lead author and Humana’s chief medical and corporate affairs officer, said in a prepared statement. “By focusing on these opportunities, we could make health care substantially more affordable.”

With that much waste in the system, the industry is crying out for more efficiency in hospitals, medical services delivery, health insurance and administration across the spectrum.

The researchers said that if the industry worked on concrete solutions, it could reduce waste by up to $282 billion a year.

They identified the most promising areas for reducing waste, and said that value-based care and reimbursement models represent a major opportunity to reduce the greatest source of waste: administrative complexity.

Value-based care

They said that value-based care models could improve administrative coordination in the system, which is currently severely lacking. The researchers wrote:

“In value-based models, in particular, those in which clinicians take on financial risk for the total cost of care of the populations they serve, many of the administrative tools used by payers to reduce waste (such as prior authorization) can be discontinued or delegated to the clinicians.”

That, they said, would reduce complexity for physicians and give them incentives to reduce waste and improve value in their treatment decision-making.

Using value-based care in which all parties share some in the financial risk would benefit insurers, employers who sponsor health insurance for their workers, hospitals, doctors and patients.

More and more insurers are experimenting with value-based care, which is primarily a payment model that offers financial incentives to physicians, hospitals, medical groups and other health care providers for meeting certain performance measures. Essentially, they are paid based on patient health outcomes.

Value-based care differs from a fee-for-service or capitated approach, in which providers are paid based on the amount of health care services they deliver. The “value” in value-based health care is derived from measuring health outcomes against the cost of delivering those outcomes.

Other waste

To further reduce waste, the researchers also recommended:

Addressing the high cost of pharmaceuticals (especially for high-cost specialty drugs).
Implementing hospital price transparency.
Implementing market competition policies.
Improving payer-provider collaboration to reform care coordination, safety and value.
Implementing new measures aimed at reducing fraud and abuse.

Average Family Plan Cost Hits $20,000 for First Time; What Can You Do to Cut Costs?

A new study has found that the average annual premium for a group family health plan has exceeded $20,000 for the first time in 2019, up 5% from 2018.

The average premium for single coverage plans in 2019 is $7,188, up 4% from the year prior, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual report on employer coverage.

The costs of high-deductible health plans are only slightly less than the average. The average premiums for covered workers in HDHPs with an attached health savings account are $6,412 for single coverage and $18,980 for family coverage.

Increasingly, workers are picking up a larger portion of the health care and insurance tab. In 2019, they are paying $6,015 on average in premiums for family coverage, or about 29% of the total tab. Workers with individual coverage contribute 17.3% toward the total premium.

Additionally, the average deductible for single coverage is $1,655 in 2019, which is unchanged from the year prior, however, the deductible is often higher for workers in small firms ($2,271) compared to large businesses ($1,412).

The average annual deductible among covered workers with a deductible has increased 36% over the last five years and 100% over the last 10 years, according to the report.

Also, 66% of workers have coinsurance and 14% have a copayment for hospital admissions. The average coinsurance rate for a hospital admission is 20%, and the average copayment is $326 per hospital admission.

Another survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Los Angeles Times found that 40% of group health plan enrollees had difficulty affording health insurance or health care, or had problems paying medical bills.

And close to 50% said that they or a family member had skipped or postponed getting health care or prescriptions in the past year due to costs.

Easing the burden

There are steps you can take to ease the burden on both your company and your employees.

Consider plans with telemedicine – More and more employers (69% of firms with 50 or more workers) are offering health plans that cover the provision of health care services through telemedicine. Telemedicine can greatly reduce the cost of care in terms of price for medical visits, as well as the time involved for the employee to travel to the doctor.

Telemedicine can include video chat and remote monitoring.

Utilizing retail health clinics – More health plans will pay for services rendered by retail clinics, like those located in pharmacies, supermarkets and retail stores. These clinics are often staffed by nurse practitioners or physician assistants and treat minor illnesses and provide preventative services. They can greatly reduce the cost of care for these kinds of visits outside normal hospital systems.

Plans with narrow networks – If a health plan can contract with fewer doctors and specialists, there is often less outlay for care. At this point, the jury is still out on exactly how much can be saved, but there are also drawbacks such as:

Disruption of provider relationships
Employee backlash
Reduced access or convenience for employees
Lack of specialists.

Tiered or high-performance networks – These networks typically group providers in the network based on the cost, quality and/or efficiency of the care they deliver and use financial incentives to encourage enrollees to use providers on the preferred tier.

The ‘Cadillac Tax’ May Finally Be Repealed

The much-maligned “Cadillac tax,” which was supposed to be implemented as a tax on high-value group health plans with premiums above a certain level, may finally be seeing the end of the road.

Already the implementation of the tax, which was created by the passage of the Affordable Care Act, has been postponed twice. It was originally supposed to take effect in 2018 under the ACA. The tax was delayed two years by Congress in 2016, pushing implementation ahead to 2020. It was delayed again in 2018 and is currently scheduled to take effect in 2022.

But now the House has overwhelmingly voted to ditch it once and for all.

The Cadillac tax is an excise tax that applies to any group health policy that would cost more than $11,200 for an individual policy, or $30,150 for family coverage. Starting in 2022, a 40% tax would apply to any premium above those levels (so if an individual policy cost $12,000 a year, the tax would apply to the $800 excess over the $11,200 level).

Although the insurance company would have to pay the tax, it is widely believed that insurers would pass it on to the employer.

Widespread distaste for the tax

The tax was maligned by both employers and labor unions, many of which receive generous benefits packages that would have been subject to the tax. Labor disliked it because they felt that employers would cut benefits to avoid paying it or pass the tax on to employees. Employers disliked the tax because, well, it’s another tax – and a hefty one at that.

But supporters of the ACA said the tax was necessary to pay for the law’s nearly $1 trillion cost and help stem the use of what was seen as potentially unnecessary care.

While there is widespread support for repealing the tax, not everyone is on board. A group of economists and health experts wrote a letter to the Senate on July 29 in which they argued that the tax “will help curtail the growth of private health insurance premiums by encouraging employers to limit the costs of plans to the tax-free amount.”

The letter also pointed out that repealing the tax “would add directly to the federal budget deficit, an estimated $197 billion over the next decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.”

This summer, the House of Representatives voted 419 to 6 to repeal the tax. Currently, a Senate companion bill has 61 co-sponsors, but the legislation has not yet come up for debate.

That said, most observers expect that the bill will soon be put up for a vote, meaning that the Cadillac tax will likely be sent to Cadillac ranch – having never seen the light of day.

As Specialty Drug Costs Bite, Employers Have Options

A new study has found that while group health plan costs will continue growing at the same rate as in the last few years (about 4% a year), the increases would be far less were it not for the spiraling costs of high-cost specialty prescription drugs.

The 2020 “Segal Health Plan Cost Trend Survey,” which polled health insurers, third party administrators, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and other payers, found that chemotherapy drugs and other specialty pharmaceuticals are having an outsized effect on overall health claims payments.

Unfortunately, this is forcing plan sponsors to figure out how to balance coverage of life-saving drugs with plan affordability. But there are steps you can take to rein in drug cost inflation.

Payers expect that pharmaceutical costs will increase by 7.1% in 2020 from this year and that the cost of specialty drugs will double that inflationary rate at 15.4%.

Rebates account for a significant part of the pharmaceutical equation. Survey respondents said that they expect the average impact of rebates would reduce overall drug price inflation by about 1.5%.

The rising cost of brand-name drug expenditures is due to drug price inflation primarily, although one-third of the increase is due to more prescriptions being filled.

Other findings in the report by Segal, a health and retirement consulting firm, are:

Price increases are the primary driver of medical and drug trends.
Double-digit specialty drug costs are mostly driven by price increases and the introduction of new and more expensive drugs.
Reimbursement rates for hospital networks are projected to increase at a higher rate than physician claims.
Plan cost trends continue to outpace both inflation and wage growth by a factor of more than two.

The study notes that projected costs in earlier surveys have always been lower than actual inflation of medical treatment and drug outlays. To deal with these increasing costs, Segal identified the top health plan cost-containment strategies that are in use in 2019:

Use of health care transparency tools.
Expanding pharmaceutical management for non-specialty drugs.
Expanding pharmaceutical management for specialty drugs.
Offering telehealth/virtual care.
Value-based contracting.

What you can do

Segal recommends the following tactics for managing drug benefit costs, as well as for contracts with PBMs:

Aim for innovative contracting with PBMs ― Hold PBMs contractually accountable for controlling costs. Contract terms can include unique specialty-drug pricing guarantees, performance-based rebates, direct contracting with regional specialty pharmacies and adoption of value-based formularies.

Expand clinical checks ― Amend plan terms to include clinical safeguards like step therapy, targeted prior authorization for high-cost services and quantity-duration limits based on Food and Drug Administration guidelines.

Plan benefit design ― Use benefit designs to increase the use of generics and lower-cost brand-name drugs, in order to help manage drug cost inflation. This can include the use of tiered designs which place clinically effective, lower-cost drugs into lower tiers at lower cost-sharing.
Also, more plan sponsors that charge drug coinsurance offer point-of-sale rebates that lower participants’ out-of-pocket expenses.

Auditing ― Conduct periodic audits of your PBM and carefully evaluate drug classification against contract terms and pricing guarantees. This is important because some PBMs continue to apply complicated pricing reclassifications that can increase your costs.