News Briefs

✦ Risk scores used to adjust Medicare Advantage plan payments were more than 3% higher than in Medicare fee for service, despite CMS establishing a 5.9% coding intensity adjustment to account for the impact of coding differences for 2019, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). This generated about $9 billion in “excess payments” to MA plans, MedPAC estimated during a presentation at its December meeting. Differences in diagnosis coding were discussed as the MA risk adjustment program’s “biggest flaw,” and MedPAC is considering an alternative for establishing benchmarks that would blend local area and national fee-for-service spending. One of the challenges cited with such a model is the need to protect smaller MA plans and startups, and MedPAC is still working through such considerations. Go to http://www.medpac.gov/-public-meetings.

✦ The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 4 agreed to weigh in on the dispute over the legality of Medicaid work requirements. The cases in question are Gresham v. Azar and Philbrick v. Azar, which respectively challenge Arkansas’ and New Hampshire’s section 1115 demonstration programs that make Medicaid eligibility contingent upon completing “community engagement activities” for a subset of beneficiaries. The two suits will be consolidated into one case — called Azar v. Gresham — and oral arguments will take place at a still-to-be-decided date early next year. The Biden administration, however, could roll back Trump administration-era guidance that paved the way for Medicaid work requirements waivers, making it unclear how such a move would interact with the Supreme Court’s ultimate decision. Visit https://bit.ly/3gsxwfd.

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• Radar on Medicare Advantage