Medicare Advantage growth could be challenging for hospitals
Healthcare Finance News August 22, 2024
The growth poses challenges to providers’ credit quality, given growing risks to reimbursement from MA plans.
The Medicare Advantage program recently achieved the milestone of covering more than half of all Medicare beneficiaries, but according to a report from S&P Global Ratings, this could have an adverse impact on hospital margins.
That in turn could be a negative credit factor for certain healthcare service companies – the most stressed segment within S&P’s rated for-profit healthcare universe. The firm said hospitals are the most negatively affected healthcare services subsector.
Analysts said they expect providers to see future rate pressure from regulatory changes, and from MA plans implementing strategies to preserve their margins from higher utilization.
WHAT’S THE IMPACT
Medicare Advantage coverage...