Fidelity Exec Expects Medicare Issuers to Keep Emergency Benefits in Place
Harold Stankard also sees plenty of $0 premium plans, and more dental benefits.
Many Medicare Advantage plan issuers are keeping, and even improving, COVID-19 pandemic period emergency benefits they may be able to drop.
Harold Stankard, the head of Fidelity Medicare Services at Fidelity Investments, gave that assessment in a recent email interview.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra extended the COVID-19 pandemic emergency period with a declaration letter posted July 15. HHS watchers believe the July 15 extension will end on Oct. 13.
Once the extension ends, Medicare Advantage plans could impose higher co-payments or coinsurance requirements for COVID-19 tests and treatments; cut telehealth benefits; and reduce enrollees’ access to telehealth benefits.
Instead, “we’ve observed that many insurance carriers are choosing to continue to offer many of the plan benefits that were rolled out in response to the pandemic, with some even planning enhancements to these benefits for 2023,” Stankard said.
What It Means
The Medicare Advantage plan market is still highly competitive, and issuers have financial incentives to cover services that may keep small problems from becoming big problems.
That may help clients’ Medicare benefits packages.
The Annual Enrollment Period
Medicare supplement insurance has its own enrollment period rules.
The annual enrollment period for Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, when Medicare enrollees can sign up for those types of plans without showing they have a special need to be shopping for coverage, is set to run from Oct. 15 through Dec. 7.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that runs Medicare plan programs, says the projected average premium for 2023 Medicare Advantage plans will be $18 per month, down about 8% from $19.52 per month this year.
Agents and brokers are going through the public Medicare plan spreadsheets now to see exactly what is in the plans.
Fidelity’s Medicare Services
Fidelity is best known as an asset manager, but it also employs licensed health insurance agents who can help clients in some states buy all kinds of Medicare plans, as well as stand-alone dental and vision plans.
The company’s current Medicare plan service area includes Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennesee, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Fidelity offers Medicare advisory services because it believes they’re a critical part of the retirement planning process, Stankard said.
“We know that health and financial well-being are inextricably linked, and that health care costs continue to make up a significant portion of retirement spending,” he said.
More Market Insights
Stankard said he also sees:
- Carriers still expanding their market footprints and adding more plans in more regions.
- More $0 premium plans.
- More nontraditional benefits, such as dental, vision and fitness benefits.
- New programs that reward enrollees for making efforts to improve their health.
- Extra, pandemic-related meal delivery and prescription drug delivery services.
- Increased access to nurse lines that operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
(Image: Bram Janssens/Thinkstock)