Medicare Advantage Enrollment and Beneficiary Risk Scores: Difference-in-Differences Analyses Show Increases for All Enrollees On Account of Market-Wide Changes.

ABSTRACT: Medicare adjusts payments to Medicare Advantage (MA) insurers using risk scores that summarize the relationship between fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare spending and beneficiaries' demographic characteristics and documented health conditions. Research shows that MA insurers have increasingly documented conditions more thoroughly than traditional Medicare-resulting in higher payments to insurers-but little is known about what factors contribute to diverging risk scores. We apportion that divergence between market-wide increases and increases that vary with length of MA enrollment. We also examine whether effects vary across plan types and whether the enrollment duration effect is contingent upon remaining with the same insurer. Using Medicare administrative data from 2008 to 2013, we employ a

SUBMITTER: Hayford TB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6077888 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan-Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature