Medicare Advantage Plans Can Pay for Many LTC Services in 2019: Feds

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is getting ready to let Medicare Advantage plan issuers add major new long-term care benefits to their supplemental benefits menus, reports Think Advisor . The Better Medicare Alliance, a Washington-based coalition for companies and groups with an interest in Medicare Advantage, has posted a copy of a memo that shows CMS is reinterpreting the phrase "primarily health related" when deciding whether a Medicare Advantage plan can cover a specific benefit. Kathryn Coleman, director of the CMS Medicare Drug & Health Plan Contract Administration Group, writes in the memo, which was sent to Medicare Advantage organizations April 27, that CMS will let a plan cover adult day care services for individuals who need help with either the basic "activities of daily living," such as walking or going to the bathroom, or with "instrumental activities of daily living," such as the ability to cook, clean, or shop.