GAO says Medicare Advantage costs more than traditional Medicare

Companies that provide services to Medicare Advantage patients appear to be using different coding methods for some patients than the methods employed by the traditional Medicare system, the Government Accounting Office, or GAO, said in a report issued today. As a result, Medicare Advantage patients’ risk scores - an index of patients' health and status used to determine payments - were 4.8%-7.1% higher than they likely would have been if the patients had been enrolled in traditional Medicare, GAO said. This difference would have resulted in $3.9B-$5.8B of extra payments by Medicare Advantage patients in 2010, but CMS reduced the Medicare Advantage payments by $2.7B, the GAO said. However, the discrepancy in risk scores appears to be increasing over time, the GAO added.