Senators Call For Medicare Advantage Data Disclosures on Hearing Benefits

On December 7, a bipartisan group of senators submitted a letter to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) urging the agency to require Medicare Advantage (MA) Plans to submit additional data and to publicly release the data it already collects. 

The letter requests a staff-level briefing by December 27 on CMS’s plan to improve its data collection and reporting practices for MA plans. As well as calling for disclosure of complete encounter data and prior authorization requests, the letter calls for data on the utilization of supplemental benefits, such as hearing, vision and dental and associated out-of-pocket costs. “There is little information on enrollees’ utilization of these benefits, the specific items or services they receive, associated out-of-pocket spending or provider payment information.”