News
CMS Calls for Comments on Special Supplemental Benefits in Medicare Advantage
- By: USAging
- On: 02/15/2019 09:14:01
- In: Policy & Advocacy
As part of the implementation of the CHRONIC Care Act of 2018, CMS's annual Medicare “call letter” provides new details on how this special Medicare Advantage benefit for seriously chronically ill beneficiaries may work. n4a is developing our formal comments on the proposal and encourages our members to consider submitting their own comments in support of the supplemental benefits language by the March 1 deadline.
The portion of the call letter that deals with special supplemental benefits can be found on pages 161 through 164 of Part II of the Advance Notice. As you will read, this section of the document provides examples of the type of supplemental services eligible under this authority, as well as very helpful language encouraging Medicare Advantage plans to contract with community-based organizations, such as AAAs, to provide these new benefits. n4a intends to salute these provisions and provide additional examples of services that we believe would meet the requirements and should be noted in the final call letter. While it is still up to the plans to decide whether to create these special benefits for eligible beneficiaries, we see this as a potentially great opportunity for our members, and therefore have been advocating for this reform for several years.
To submit comments or questions electronically, go to www.regulations.gov, enter the docket number “CMS-2018-0154” in the “search” field, and follow the instructions for ‘‘submitting a comment.''
Have questions for your n4a policy team? Email agotwals@n4a.org and acampbell@n4a.org.