Access to care leading to dissatisfaction with Medicare Advantage plans

policy makers to curb these costs including the Affordable Care Act, Defined Contribution pension plan models etc., the battle seems to be unending, at least for now. A Health Insurance Survey conducted in 2010 by the Commonwealth Fund attempts to gauge the satisfaction level of Medicare beneficiaries’ vis-à-vis individuals enrolled in employer-sponsored plans and private plans.
It was noticed that only 8% of the Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 or above were moderately to highly dissatisfied with their plans, compared with those enrolled in employer-sponsored programs (20%) and individual plans (33%).
It was also identified that seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans (15%) were unhappy with their health coverage plans compared to just 6% of those with traditional Medicare plans. One point for discontentment may be the dissatisfaction with access to care. 23% of seniors with traditional Medicare plans reported difficulties in accessing care as compared to 32% of Medicare Advantage plan enrollees. However, those enrolled in traditional Medicare were more likely that Medicare Advantage beneficiaries to have their premiums and out of pocket costs exceed 10% of their net income. 
Payers operating in Medicare Advantage exchanges and providing managed care to seniors may need to introduce necessary measures for improving the accessibility to care for these senior citizens. With Medicare Advantage plans offering extra benefits as compared to traditional Medicare, enrollments have been continuously rising in these plans. If insurers develop a business strategy to simplify the way these seniors access their health care and other wellness services, then the insurers are likely to notice a marked improvement in their Medicare Advantage sales figures. A well-developed strategy can help insurers reap higher bottom line figures and increased profits.
A number of healthcare software vendors have introduced Medicare software packages that allow insurers to quickly develop an online portal for selling insurance to senior citizens. Some of these healthcare IT vendors also provide end-to-end business solutions to insurers and take care of the entire product implementation cycle from consulting with insurers on the best IT solutions, deploying the appropriate healthcare IT product & providing post-deployment application maintenance & support.
Medicare software usually comprises of automated applications for performing most of the insurance related complex tasks such as enrollment applications processing & management, automated letter triggering to consumers, online benefit & rate management etc. Insurers that provide managed Medicare plan services to States stand to benefit from deploying the Medicare software on their local IT networks as the software considerably simplifies the Medicare plan administration process and increases accessibility to Medicare plans for senior citizens.