Nearly Half of Medicare Advantage Enrollees Unaware of Long-Term Care Benefits

Between 2010 and 2016, knowledge of dental and vision benefits under Medicare Advantage plans grew among enrollees, but the proportion of enrollees aware of nursing home care benefits shrank. Researchers reported their findings online in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 

“The Medicare Advantage program insures a rapidly growing proportion of older adults, and may be more appealing due to lower cost sharing,” explained researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in Manhattan in the study introduction. “However, the extent to which older adults are informed of their plan benefits and how plan knowledge has changed over time is unclear.”

To better understand trends in enrollees’ understanding of Medicare Advantage plan coverage, researchers evaluated data from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey for the years 2010 through 2016.  

The proportion of older adults covered by Medicare Advantage plans who did not know if their plan covered nursing home care grew from 38% to 45.5% over the study period. However, enrollees not knowing their dental benefits dropped from 6.4% to 3.4%, and older adults unaware of their vision benefits fell from 8.2% to 5.9%, according to the study. 

“Older adults from racial and ethnic minority groups, with lower levels of education and income and who reside in certain regions or have functional disability, are less likely to know their plan benefits,” researchers reported. “This may imply decreasing preparedness for future long‐term care needs.” —Jolynn Tumolo