Medicare Advantage Outperforms FFS Medicare in Caring for Beneficiaries with Chronic Conditions Fact Sheet

Better Medicare Alliance (BMA) sponsored new research by Avalere Health: Medicare Advantage Achieves Cost-Effective Care and Better Outcomes for Beneficiaries with Chronic Conditions Relative to Fee-for-Service Medicare.

This new research provides a comparison of Medicare Advantage and Traditional Fee-For-Service (FFS) Medicare in caring for individuals with chronic conditions.

Avalere analyzed a national sample of 1.6 million Medicare Advantage beneficiaries and 1.2 million FFS Medicare beneficiaries with one of three selected chronic conditions –

hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes – and compared relative performance on a range of demographic, cost, utilization and quality metrics. Findings demonstrated that high-need and chronically ill beneficiaries in Medicare Advantage experience better quality outcomes at comparable or lower costs than FFS Medicare, despite having more clinical and social risk factors.