U.S. Medicare beneficiaries with type 2 diabetes who had health coverage through a Medicare Advantage (MA) plan received treatment with an sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitor or glucagonlike peptide–1 receptor agonist significantly less often than patients with traditional fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare coverage in 2014-2019, according to a study of more than 411,000 patients.
concluded Utibe R. Essien, MD, and coauthors in a study published in Diabetes Care.
The report comes as the U.S. Congress is looking closely at the MA program and evidence that insurance companies that provide these policies sometimes impose inappropriate barriers on enrolled beneficiaries by denying or limiting access to treatments and interventions in ways that run counter to Medicare’s coverage policies.
According to Representative Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), who chaired a hearing on MA plans on June 28 by the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, beneficiaries who are covered through an MA plan “do not always get the care that they are entitled to.”
The study by Dr. Essien and colleagues also documents some positives of care delivered through MA plans for patients with type 2 diabetes, compared with what FFS Medicare beneficiaries generally receive, such as significantly higher rates of screening for nephropathy and ophthalmologic disorders, and foot examinations.
But the apparently dampened use of SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists among MA beneficiaries stand out as notable shortcomings, Dr. Essien maintained.
Cost containment may limit use
“The differences in health outcomes and in treatments in MA plans are important to highlight,” Dr. Essien said in an interview. “We worry that the cost-containment challenges [associated with MA plans] may be limiting use of these newer treatments.”
The study was based on 2014-2019 data from the Diabetes Collaborative Registry, which collects information from more than 5,000 U.S. clinicians whose practices include patients with diabetes, as well as claims data recorded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during 2014-2017.
The main analysis focused on 345,911 Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes, which included 34% with MA coverage and 66% with FFS coverage. The two subgroups had similar ages, about 75 years old, and roughly half were women in both subgroups. The rate at which both subgroups received statin treatment was nearly the same: 72% for those with MA coverage and 71% for those with FFS Medicare.
But MA beneficiaries differed from those with FFS coverage in several other ways. MA beneficiaries had a higher prevalence of Medicaid eligibility than the FFS group (20% vs 12%) and lower rates of consultations with cardiologists (41% vs. 45%) or endocrinologists (7% vs. 10%).
Some of the positive differences in the care received by MA beneficiaries, compared with FFS beneficiaries, after adjustment for potential clinical and sociodemographic confounders, included:
- Screening for nephropathy, at a significant 14% higher relative rate.
- Screening for ophthalmologic disorders, at a significant 8% higher relative rate.
- Undergoing a diabetic foot examination, at a significant 13% higher relative rate.
- Receiving smoking-cessation counseling, at a significant 5% higher relative rate.
- Receiving treatment with an ACE inhibitor or angiotensin-receptor blocker (87% vs. 81%).
- More consistently receiving treatment with metformin, with rates of 72% versus 69% in 2017.