Meeting with CMS at Baltimore, MD offices

In August 2019, the government released a completely redesigned Medicare Plan Finder tool.  The previous tool had not been redesigned in over 10 years, so CMS was looking to improve the beneficiary experience.

With the initial release, there were a number of issues that we quickly identified.

On October 1, 2019, I was given an opportunity to jump on a call with the key contributors at CMS to discuss some of the concerns from our association, National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU).  

Actual notes from our working group session on Feb 19, 2020 in Baltimore, MD with CMS.

On the initial call, CMS agreed to have twice weekly calls throughout the Annual Enrollment Period to allow us to raise any key issues/requests with the Medicare Plan Finder and work through them with CMS.  So, these calls continued through the Annual Enrollment Period (ending December 7, 2019).

A lot of key issues were addressed from these calls with CMS: 

• Total Cost Calculator and Sort
• Drug Pricing Issues
• Deductible Calculation Issues
• Mail Order Pricing Issues
• Navigation Issues
• Pharmacy Network Issues
• And More...

These calls proved to be a very successful Partnership with CMS as we were all striving to improve the Beneficiaries experience with the new Medicare Plan Finder.

At the end of the Annual Enrollment Period, we still had a number of open items that would improve the Beneficiary experience with the Medicare Plan Finder.

In January, we received an invite to a meeting with CMS (on Feb 19, 2020) in Maryland to discuss the open items and next steps with the Medicare Plan Finder.

Quick Recap of Meeting from Feb 19, 2020 with CMS
The 3-hour meeting included key stakeholders from a number of difference groups:

• Associations (AARP, National Association of Health Underwriters, National Council on Aging, Medicare Rights Center, Justice in Aging, Center for Medicare Advocacy, and more)
• Carriers (UHC, Humana, Anthem, CVS/Aetna, Centene, Highmark, Humana )
• Government Agencies (CMS, HHS, Administration of Community Living)

The room was setup into about 10 different working groups/tables with representatives from different groups at each table.

CMS kicked off the meeting with some background on the key drivers for creating a brand new Medicare Plan Finder tool.  Then, we were given direction for the working groups to discuss a few key themes and come up with a list of "Things that are working well" with the Medicare Plan Finder and "Opportunities that are still open" with the Medicare Plan Finder.

One of the really interesting things that came out of this meetings is the feedback across the working groups was very similar.  These are stakeholders from all different organizations impacted by the Medicare Plan Finder and the key themes overlapped significantly.  Some of the highlights are below.

"What's Working Well" with the Medicare Plan Finder

• ​Total Cost Calculator & Sort - this is an extremely important function that was not included in the initial release on August 27, 2019 but was later added (around October 10, 2019).  This function allows a Medicare beneficiary to identify the most cost-effective Part D Plan 
• Look & Feel - the new Medicare Plan Finder is much "cleaner" looking than the old Medicare Plan Finder.  There is more white space and information is generally easier to find
• Mobile Optimized - the Medicare Plan Finder is optimized and responsive which means it displays nicely on a smart phone or tablet
• Site Performance/Responsiveness - the infrastructure for the Medicare Plan Finder appears to be quite robust considering the volume of users and the speed of the site.  Clicking from screen to screen is nearly instantaneous; there is not a lot of waiting for page loads with the new Medicare Plan Finder.

Some key "Opportunities" that still exist with the Medicare Plan Finder

• General Communication/Transparency - this meeting on Feb 19 was a good start to keeping the communication open with CMS.  We need to continue these types of discussions including a feedback loop so we understand the Roadmap and Priorities for new Functionality/fixes going forward.
• Ability to save an Anonymous Drug List.  For beneficiaries that don't have their Medicare Number yet (perhaps just analyzing the potential costs of Medicare Plans), there is no way for them currently to Save their Drug List information so they don't have to re-enter it every time they are reviewing options.  
• Ability to Calculate Total Annual Cost for a full year projection.  Currently the tool only provides the ability to project Total costs based on the 1st of the following month which is useful to provide an estimate for the rest of the year; however, the current tool does not allow a new Medicare Beneficiary to budget out a full year of projected Part D costs for someone enrolling in the middle of the year.
• Need some sort of indicator (e.g. Red Flag) on Plan Results Page for Plans that do NOT cover all the drugs in the formulary.  This is critical because we are still finding examples of Incorrect Pricing displaying for non-covered drugs. 
• Improved Reporting - there are some report printouts available in the current tool however there are a couple of key issues with the reports: a Beneficiary is not able to run a Comparison report of multiple plans that shows the drug level pricing information to compare plans.  Also, the printouts of the reports have a poor layout and take up about 15-20 pages; these could be reduced to about 10 pages with the same information included.

I really look forward to continued engagement and partnership with CMS as we look to improve the experience for Medicare beneficiaries going forward.
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