Racial and ethnic disparities in access to and enrollment in high-quality Medicare Advantage plans.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Racial and ethnic minority enrollees in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans tend to be in lower-quality plans, measured by a 5-star quality rating system. We examine whether differential access to high-rated plans was associated with this differential enrollment in high-rated plans by race and ethnicity among MA enrollees.

Data sources

The Medicare Master Beneficiary Summary File and MA Landscape File for 2016.

Study design

We first examined county-level MA plan offerings by race and ethnicity. We then examined the association of racial and ethnic differences in enrollment by star rating by controlling for the following different sets of covariates: (1) individual-level characteristics only, and (2) individual-level characteristics and county-level MA plan offerin

SUBMITTER: Park S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10012240 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature