In January 2021, it partnered with multistate managed care organization CareSource, which offers Medicaid and Medicare Advantage plans.

As part of the tie-up, Best Buy’s Lively Mobile Plus remote monitoring program was embedded with Kaiser’s Medicare program. Best Buy Health’s focus on older adults could be especially attractive to virtual care vendors—there’s a growing need for at-home care among the elderly, and telehealth providers will want to help power it.

Thirty-four percent of US citizens were covered by either a Medicare, Medicaid, or military healthcare plan in 2019, per the US Census Bureau. The CMS has been ramping up efforts to get digital health tools into more of its beneficiaries' hands.

For context, the CMS doesn’t currently cover most digital therapies under Medicare or Medicaid—but a temporary rule could begin to change this. In early January, the CMS issued a new rule that would automatically provide Medicare coverage for FDA breakthrough devices for a period of four years—but it’s since delayed enforcement of that rule to December 2021.

It’s participating in a new experimental Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services program trying to lower Medicare costs by paying select companies directly to deliver care—a model that should incentivize doctors to focus on quality of care rather than quantity of services.

More than 60% of Medicare-eligible seniors said they’ve embraced technology more amid the pandemic, with the use of telemedicine among this segment increasing 300% during the public health crisis.

For context, Kindred at Home has locations across 40 states, serves 550,000 patients, employs 43,000 caregivers, and has a 65% overlap with Humana’s Medicare Advantage (MA) marketplaces.

And the Biden administration is preparing to lower Medicare eligibility from age 65 to 60—which should fuel even more growth and in turn more scrutiny.

The CMS later launched its Acute Hospital at Home initiative, which reimbursed hospitals for providing hospital-level care via telehealth and remote patient monitoring to Medicare patients in their homes. As of May 7, the CMS has already approved 56 health systems and 129 hospitals across 30 states for this program.

In 2018, the US spent nearly $82 billion treating Medicare beneficiaries with CKD.

Its membership grew by more than 1 million, largely due to seniors signing up for privatized Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. Meanwhile, its profits soared over 40% annually to $4.9 billion, and revenues ticked up 9% to $70.2 billion—a little over half of which came from its health services arm, Optum.

For example, early last year, CityBlock Health collaborated with Tufts Health Plan to address SDOH for Medicare and Medicaid-eligible members under the age of 65, a population that is typically “the most hard to reach,” according to Tufts Health Plan executives.

A 2019 analysis by New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC), the nonprofit organization running the network, estimated that the use of SHIN-NY would reduce the state’s healthcare spending by $160 million to $195 million annually, for all types of payers including Medicare and Medicaid.

And while some commercial payers—like Cigna’s Express Scripts digital formulary—are paying for DTx, Medicare has not kept up with DTx’ rapid innovation.

But many docs say it's difficult to manage their patients’ pain without medication like opioids since alternative interventions always aren’t covered by payers like Medicare (which provided care to 24 million beneficiaries in 2020 alone).

Last March, the CMS announced the Hospital Without Walls program, granting hospitals the ability to temporarily transfer patients to other facilities like ambulatory surgery centers, but still receive payments via Medicare.

UnitedHealthcare and Cigna are broadening their Medicare Advantage plans​. Epic teamed up with UMinnesota to develop an AI algorithm that identifies COVID-19​. eMarketer and Business Insider Intelligence have joined forces to become the leading research company focused on digital transformation.

For example, during the annual enrollment period for Medicare, seniors are faced with a bewildering array of options as to how to construct their Medicare support, and we have a lot of rich content on that, like videos. This segment includes lists of questions to ask yourself as well as guided questionnaires to help you learn more. What is your content marketing strategy on the B2B side?

In March, the government expanded Medicare telehealth coverage, which will affect roughly 44 million people covered under the program, per AARP. According to the new guidelines, beneficiaries will be able to receive a wide range of services, like office visits, mental health counseling and preventive health screening without leaving their homes.