Helaine I. Fingold, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Baltimore office, was quoted in HealthPayerIntelligence, in “The Medicare Advantage Marketing Problem and Where It’s Headed,” by Victoria Bailey.
Following is an excerpt:
Each year, Medicare’s open enrollment period starts mid-October and is preceded by an influx of marketing materials advertising private Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D, and Medigap plans. While marketing practices are intended to inform consumers of their health plan options, many strategies have led to confusion and complaints from beneficiaries.
Since 2022, the Biden Administration has increased efforts to improve oversight of Medicare and Medicare Advantage marketing activities. Strategies to curb misleading advertising of Medicare Advantage are especially important as 50 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in the private program. …
Payer Strategies for Compliance
With a slew of new marketing regulations, payers must stay on top of the changes to protect beneficiaries from misleading information. …
Although it may be vendors and brokers who are deploying faulty marketing materials, ultimately, it is the plans’ responsibility to prevent these practices by creating oversight programs, Helaine Fingold, partner at Epstein Becker & Green, explained to HealthPayerIntelligence.
“Plans need to be proactive in understanding how people get to them and how they’re being presented, or even just the generic marketing of the entities that they contract with downstream and some they may not even contract with, but that are part of the chain of marketing and enrollment,” Fingold said. “They need a more intimate understanding of how that’s being handled.”
Another critical area payers should address is aligning marketing materials with the available products in a given geographic area.
“Some broad-based marketing says beneficiaries could be eligible for additional benefits like vision, dental, or hearing aids, but it depends upon where you live, what plans are available where you live, and your eligibility for those plans,” Fingold pointed out.
