More Medicare Beneficiaries Switching to Medicare Advantage

Although more Medicare beneficiaries switched from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare in 2016, the reverse happened during the years 2017 through 2020: more beneficiaries switched over to Medicare Advantage plans. Researchers reported their findings in a research letter published in JAMA Health Forum.

“In 2020, traditional-Medicare-to-Medicare-Advantage switching rates were almost 4 and 2.5 times higher than switching rates from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare for Medicare-only and Medicare-Medicaid enrollees, respectively,” wrote corresponding author Lane Koenig, PhD, and coauthors from KNG Health Consulting, North Bethesda, Maryland. “As a result, switching accounted for a growing share of new Medicare Advantage enrollment growth, increasing from 49% in 2016 to 67% in 2020.”

The study, which analyzed US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Master Beneficiary Summary File Limited Data Sets from 2014 to 2020, looked at switching behavior trends by demographic groups.

According to the findings, by 2020 beneficiaries who were Black and Hispanic were more than twice as likely as those who were White to leave traditional Medicare. Disenrollment rates were 13.4% among Black beneficiaries, 13.5% among Hispanic beneficiaries, and 5.9% among White beneficiaries.

In 2016, beneficiaries in their last year of life were more likely to disenroll from Medicare Advantage than traditional Medicare, when 5.4% left Medicare Advantage and 2.6% left traditional Medicare. That trend, too, showed a reversal by 2020, when 3.1% left Medicare Advantage and 5.1% left traditional Medicare, the study found.

“This study’s findings on the evolving Medicare-Advantage-to-traditional-Medicare switching rate in the last year of life suggest that prior research, which showed increased spending in association with this switch, may have overstated its association with future Medicare spending,” researchers wrote. “Black and Hispanic beneficiaries in this cohort had higher disenrollment rates from traditional Medicare, suggesting that these groups are an important source of the changing financial implications.”

Reference:
Unuigbe A, Cintina I, Koenig L. Beneficiary switching between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage between 2016 and 2020. JAMA Health Forum. Published online December 2, 2022. doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2022.4896