Home Health Care CMS unveils new consumer-facing app to help Medicare patients understand benefits

CMS unveils new consumer-facing app to help Medicare patients understand benefits

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CMS has released a new smartphone app meant to create a modernized and efficient pathway for beneficiaries and caregivers to understand what’s covered by their Medicare plan and out-of-pocket for procedures and services.

The “What’s Covered” app is free to download on both the iOS and Google Play stores and will allow users to see if specific items or services are covered under their traditional Medicare Part A and Part B benefits. The app also provides a list of covered preventive services.

What’s Covered aims to create another pathway for the government to answer questions about Medicare coverage, which are one of the most frequent inquiries that CMS receives.

The new technology is part of a broader initiative from CMS called eMedicare  that is seeking to create more personalized and consumer-friendly online experiences for Medicare beneficiaries.

These include the ability to create personalized accounts on MyMedicare.gov, price transparency tools to compare procedures done in different care settings and enabling Medicare patients to share their health information to third party applications and research programs through the Blue Button 2.0 program.

“eMedicare is one of several initiatives focused on modernizing Medicare and empowering patients with information they need to get the best value from their Medicare coverage,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a statement.

“This new app is the next in a suite of products designed to give consumers more access and control over their Medicare information.”

The new app aligns with some of the recent CMS eMedicare solutions, but it’s also a nod to the fact that older Americans are becoming increasingly connected and tech-adept.

Jokes about grandma’s iPhone usage aside, a 2017 study from Pew Research found that 42 percent of Americans 65 years of age and older owned a smartphone. That proportion is double the number in 2013.

Internet use and broadband connectivity among that population has also grown with two-thirds of seniors reporting they use the internet.

The United States population as a whole continues to age and the Medicare population is projected to increase by nearly 50 percent by 2030 with a much larger proportion of those 80 million patients expected to be smartphone users.

Picture: Kasipat, Getty Images

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