The mobile-friendly redesign will walk users through the enrollment process, letting them search for additional information on pricing, supplemental benefits, and more, according to officials.
The online tool Medicare beneficiaries use to compare their options has a new look, with added functionality that officials say will make it easier for consumers to make informed selections.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services launched the revamped Medicare Plan Finder on Tuesday, seven weeks ahead of open enrollment for 2020 coverage.
The idea, says CMS Administrator Seema Verma, flows from the Trump administration's eMedicare initiative to meet the needs and expectations of tech-savvy consumers, especially in light of the added flexibility the agency has granted to Medicare Advantage (MA) plans for coverage of supplemental benefits.
"The tool had not been updated in a decade, so you can imagine that there were a lot of opportunities to just make it more user-friendly: redesigning the experience with simple prompts, clean design, fonts, colors, all things that are easy on the eye," Verma tells HealthLeaders in an interview. "But more importantly, it provides more functionality for decision-making so that they can compare the plans on cost and quality and supplemental benefits."
The updated tool will allow beneficiaries to compare prices among original Medicare plans, Medicare prescription drug plans, MA plans, and Medicare supplemental insurance options (Medigap), according to a CMS announcement. The mobile-friendly update will let beneficiaries compare up to three drug or MA plans side by side, and it will allow users to import their list of medications so they can compare plans in light of their known needs, according to the announcement.
The update comes after the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report last month that said the existing Plan Finder "is difficult for beneficiaries to use and provides incomplete information." The tool required users to navigate multiple pages before they could see plan details, lacked prominent instructions, and included complex terminology, according to the GAO report.
The overhaul, which sought to streamline the tool's information and use easy-to-understand language, is part of the Trump administration's far-reaching efforts to empower beneficiaries as consumers, Verma says.
"When we talk about 'empowering,' it's giving patients the information and the tools that they need to make decisions that are going to work best for them and their families," she says. "So a lot of our initiatives—price transparency, quality transparency, making sure patients have access to their medical records—all of those are our efforts to empower patients."
The changes are also about responding to requests from a younger generation of beneficiaries and caregivers, Verma says.
"Our new generation is used to Amazon, they're used to apps. And I think they have those expectations of the Medicare program as well," she says.
One in four Medicare beneficiaries accessed the Plan Finder tool on mobile devices last year, a significant increase from the previous year, according to the CMS announcement.
Both the old and new Medicare Plan Finder tools will be available online through the end of September, as part of a phased rollout, according to the CMS announcement. This will give users an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the changes and offer feedback.
There's also a potential opportunity for innovators and entrepreneurs: the agency says it intends to release real-time Medicare plan data in an API format by the end of the year, so the private sector can devise more tools to help beneficiaries make their plan selections.
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Steven Porter is an associate content manager and Strategy editor for HealthLeaders, a Simplify Compliance brand.
Photo credit: Image provided by CMS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The CMS administrator says the overhaul is part of the agency's efforts to meet the expectations of a generation that's 'used to Amazon' and mobile apps.
The update comes shortly after a GAO report critical of the Plan Finder's usability.