New data from Better Medicare Alliance (BMA) and ATI Advisory shows fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare beneficiaries who live in rural areas spend 49 percent more on health care premiums and out-of-pocket costs than Medicare Advantage (MA) enrollees.
The report researched the patient experiences across MA and FFS Medicare for beneficiaries who live in rural areas. Since 2010, MA enrollment quadrupled in rural areas. Today, more than 40 percent of Medicare eligible seniors in rural areas choose MA for their health care coverage.
To conduct the survey, ATI Advisory relied on the results of the 2017-2020 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, which provides detailed demographic and care experience data from 14,000 Medicare beneficiaries, and the Master Beneficiary Summary File from September 2023, which delivers data on program enrollment by geography.
“Seniors living in rural areas face unique health care challenges–access and affordability should not be among them. These findings from ATI Advisory advance the discussion around rural health care and contribute to better understanding how affordability and access to preventative care allow rural beneficiaries to benefit from Medicare Advantage,” said Mary Beth Donahue, BMA president and CEO, in the announcement.
The report offers five key takeaways on rural beneficiary experiences and characteristics across MA and FFS Medicare:
- MA enrollees are half as likely to be burdened by their health care costs as those in FFS Medicare in rural areas.
- MA beneficiaries are more likely to report satisfaction with the ease of getting to the doctor than those in FFS Medicare. Overall, MA and FFS Medicare enrollees in rural areas report similar rates of positive health care experiences.
- MA enrollees are more likely to report using key preventive care services, such as receiving mammograms and annual wellness visits and are less likely to report having an outpatient visit than those in FFS Medicare.
- In rural areas, MA enrollees are nearly three times as likely to be Black and more likely to be Latino than those in FFS Medicare.
- Individuals living in rural areas benefit from an average of 27 MA plans from which to choose.