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Tag Archives: Medicare Advantage


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Beware Deceptive Marketing of Medicare Advantage Plans

Medicare Advantage Plans (MA) are a good fit for many people, while they may not be a good idea for others.  I have no problem with Medicare Advantage, but I do have a problem with the deceptive ways these plans are marketed. 

Earlier this year The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) revealed that from 2020 to 2021 the agency received double the complaints from Medicare eligible persons about private sector marketing of MA plans.  These complaints launched a Senate Finance Committee majority staff inquiry in August 2022.  The committee reviewed complaints from 14 states and found that Medicare eligible persons were being “inundated with aggressive marketing tactics as well as false and misleading information, such as:

Seniors shopping at their local grocery store are approached by insurance agents and asked to switch their Medicare coverage or MA plan.

Insurance agents selling new MA plans tell seniors that their doctors are covered by the new plans. Seniors who switch plans find out months later that their doctor is actually out-of-network, and they have to pay out-of-pocket to visit their doctor.

Seniors receive mailers that look like official business from a Federal agency, yet the mailer is a marketing prompt from an MA plan or its agent or broker.


An insurance agent calls seniors 20 times a day, attempting to convince them to switch their Medicare coverage.


Widespread television advertisements with celebrities claim that seniors are missing out on benefits, including higher Social Security payments, in order ot prompt seniors to call MA plan agent or broker hotlines.”

These deceptive Medicare Advantage marketing practices are especially pervasive during open enrollment (October 15 – December 7).  The committee recommends that CMS warn seniors and people living with disabilities of the following:


“Warning 1: USE CAUTION IF CALLING A TV HELPLINE . The Federal Medicare program does not advertise MA plans or benefits on television. These so-called helplines will connect you with an agent or broker. That agent or broker does not have to tell you about all of your options in the Medicare program and does not have to ensure that your plan will meet your needs.


Warning 2: IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE BEEN ENROLLED IN A NEW PLAN THAT DOESN’T WORK FOR YOU, CALL 1-800-MEDICARE FOR HELP. Seniors and people living with disabilities can also get no-cost counseling from the local State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) or Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP office). In some situations you may be eligible for a special enrollment period to switch back into your original plan During the first three months of the year you can also change your enrollment.


Warning 3: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU CLICK. Third-Party Marketing Organizations are using sneaky tactics to get your information and then sell your information to agents or brokers who can call you. When in doubt, don’t provide your information on unfamiliar websites or to unfamiliar people. The Medicare Call Center (1-800-MEDICARE) and your local State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) office can help you understand your Medicare choices and enroll in a plan that will meet
your needs.”

There are multiple policy recommendations made in this report including reinstating requirements over marketing MA plans that were loosened during the Trump Administration. 

The full report, Deceptive Marketing Practices Flourish in Medicare Advantage, can give you good insight on how to protect yourself while shopping for the right Medicare coverage that meets your individual needs.


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Beware Medicare Advantage

Medicare Advantage plans flood the market with advertising leading consumers to believe that they are missing out on the best coverage possible without an Advantage plan as opposed to Original Medicare.

True, Medicare Advantage plans often look attractive because they offer the same basic coverage as original Medicare at a seemingly lower cost, plus some additional benefits and services like vision and dental care that traditional Medicare doesn’t offer. One reason Medicare Advantage plans can offer such enhanced services is because the federal government gives them additional payments compared to Original Medicare.

But, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General, there is a downside to signing up for Medicare Advantage. In an alarming number of instances, private Medicare Advantage plans are denying coverage for medical services that would be covered under original Medicare, according to a federal investigation.  These denials are likely preventing or delaying medically necessary care for tens of thousands of Medicare Advantage beneficiaries each year.

The investigation by the inspector general found that 13 percent of Medicare Advantage plan denials should have been covered under Medicare.  The findings were based on a review by doctors and coding experts of service denials by 15 of the largest Medicare Advantage plans during the first week of June 2019.   Extrapolating from their findings, investigators estimate that nearly 85,000 beneficiary requests for medical care — everything from MRIs to skilled nursing facility care — could have been wrongly denied in 2019.

In an even higher proportion of cases, plans are incorrectly refusing to pay claims. Nearly one-fifth of claims that Medicare Advantage plans initially declined to pay were for services that met Medicare coverage and plan billing rules.  This translates to an estimated 1.5 million refused payments for all of 2019, which delayed or prevented payments for services that providers had already delivered.

Hidden Barriers to Care

Some 26 million Medicare beneficiares were in Medicare Advantage plans as of 2021, more than double the figure a decade ago.  The Congressional Budget Office projects that by 2030 more than half of Medicare beneficiaries will be in a private Medicare plan. Unlike original Medicare, where the federal government is the insurer, Medicare Advantage plans are run by private insurance companies. The government pays the plans a fixed monthly fee to provide services to each Medicare beneficiary under their care. The less money the plans spend on patient care, the more they and their investors make. In this way, plans have an incentive to keep costs down.

For many beneficiaries, Medicare Advantage plans’ most disagreeable cost-cutting strategy is “preauthorization” — the common requirement that doctors and other medical providers obtain the plan’s approval before a beneficiary can receive certain medical services. If the plan administrators disagree that a procedure is medically necessary, the plan may refuse to pay for it.

“[B]eneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage may not be aware that there may be greater barriers to accessing certain types of health care services in Medicare Advantage than in original Medicare,” the report states.

One example highlighted in the report tells of a Medicare Advantage plan that refused to approve a followup MRI to find out whether an adrenal lesion was malignant because the lesion was allegedly too small. In fact, Medicare’s rules do not restrict the use of followup MRIs based on the the size of a lesion. (The plan reversed its initial denial on appeal.)

Denial Appeals Can Work

The report identified two common causes of service denials. First, even though Medicare Advantage plans’ clinical criteria cannot be “more restrictive” than Medicare’s coverage rules, plans often used tighter clinical criteria, such as requiring an x-ray before approving more advanced imaging. Second, plans often claimed that the request for services lacked sufficient documentation, even though investigators who reviewed the denied claims found that the existing medical records were sufficient to support the request.

When a Medicare Advantage plan denies a preauthorization or payment request, the beneficiary can file an appeal with the plan.  The inspector general found that when a beneficiary or provider appealed or disputed the denial of a service that met Medicare’s coverage rules, plans sometimes reversed the denial.  And in certain cases, Medicare Advantage plans corrected their own errors.

The inspector general’s report offers several recommendations for the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services, which oversees Medicare Advantage plans, including better auditing of plans.   

To read the inspector general’s report, “Some Medicare Advantage Organization Denials of Prior Authorization Requests Raise Concerns About Beneficiary Access to Medically Necessary Care,” click here.