MedPAC: medicare private plans cost more than FFS.(Medicare Advantage)

Publication: Medicine & Health

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Thomson Financial Inc.

Medicare pays private plans 7 percent more than it would cost to cover the same people through the program's fee-for-service arm, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission reported April 8.

Fifty-three percent of all Medicare beneficiaries and 45 percent of private-plan--Medicare Advantage--enrollees live in counties where 2004 payment rates for private plans will exceed FFS costs by at least 5 percent, said MedPAC. The Commission warned that its figures could even understate the payment differentials, since they assume, in contravention...

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