Medicare Advantage Webinar Series

In 2025, we hosted a three-part webinar series focused on the use of Medicare Advantage data to study cancer-related care and outcomes. The webinars covered topics including data resources available to study care in Medicare Advantage, measurement of plan characteristics and provider networks, and patterns of enrollment and plan switching among cancer survivors. Recordings and presentation materials from the 2025 webinar series are available below.

Webinar 1
Using data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to measure cancer-related care and outcomes in Medicare Advantage (MA)
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
1:00 pm - 3:00 pm ET

Webinar Description

Medicare claims data and related resources have been used for over 25 years to support research examining cancer-related care patterns, selected health outcomes, and the role of comorbid health conditions for beneficiaries enrolled in Traditional Medicare (TM). But little research has examined these care patterns or other outcomes for cancer survivors enrolled in MA. As a result, we have limited information regarding differences between care provided to similar patients in TM and MA, variation across MA plans, or the experience of people with cancer who change their insurance coverage between MA and TM. While some of the data resources to assess care in the MA program have been available to researchers for an extended time, MA Encounter data that parallel TM Part A and B claims are relatively recently available and have evolved in recent years and across service types in their accuracy. It is critical for researchers to understand how to best use Encounter data, including accounting for missing data and diagnosis inflation. This webinar aims to provide an overview of data resources available to study cancer-related care, to describe the challenges in measuring cancer care in MA, and to propose potential strategies for data users.

Background Materials

• Using Medicare Advantage Encounter Data in Cancer Research - NCI Webinar
• Introduction to the Use of Medicare Encounter Data for Research – ResDAC workshop and webinars
• MedPAC report: Assessing data sources for measuring health care utilization by Medicare Advantage enrollees: Encounter data and other sources. June 2024 (PDF)
• MedPAC presentations:
  • Assessing data sources for measuring health care utilization by Medicare Advantage enrollees: Encounter data and other sources. Part 1 (PDF)
  • Assessing data sources for measuring health care utilization by Medicare Advantage enrollees: Encounter data and other sources. Part 2 (PDF)
• Jung et al. Measuring resource use in Medicare Advantage using Encounter data

Session Chair

Moderator

Panelists

Webinar 2
Measurement and assessment of Medicare Advantage (MA) plan types, benefits, networks
Thursday, August 7, 2025
1:00 pm - 3:00 pm ET

Webinar Description

Medicare Advantage (MA) plans are quite heterogeneous, with differences across plan types (HMO, POS, PPOs and SNPs), premiums and out-of-pocket caps, benefit design for mandatory benefits, supplemental benefits, provider network designs & access, affiliations with commercial insurers or major healthcare institutions, and market environments. Understanding whether and how these plan features impact MA enrollment, plan selection, and delivery of cancer-related care requires accurate data and relevant measures. This webinar is designed to identify potential mechanisms through which plan characteristics may affect outcomes, and to describe key data sources available to describe plan characteristics, and key measures. There will be a targeted examination of provider networks, and alternative strategies and data to measure them. The panel discussion will focus on data and measurement gaps, limitations, and priorities for the future.

Background Materials

Plan type, benefits

• Trends: Ryan et al. Trends in Plan Offerings, Enrollment, and Premiums in Medicare Advantage and Medigap

Network measurement, access

• MedPAC report: Provider networks and prior authorization in Medicare Advantage. June 2024 (PDF).
• MedPAC presentation: Provider networks and prior authorization in Medicare Advantage. November 2024 (PDF).
• Network data from Ideon.
• Feyman et al. Restrictiveness of Medicare Advantage provider networks across physician specialties.
• Raoof et al. Medicare Advantage Networks and Access to High-volume Cancer Surgery Hospitals.
• Raoof et al. Medicare Advantage: A Disadvantage for Complex Cancer Surgery Patients.

Session Chair

Moderator

Panelists

Webinar 3
Medicare Advantage enrollment and plan selection behaviors, and causal inference methods to address selection
Thursday, August 14, 2025
1:00 pm - 3:00 pm ET

Webinar Description

Medicare beneficiaries must actively choose to enroll in Medicare Advantage and select a plan that they expect to best meet their needs – based on benefit design, supplemental benefits, out-of-pocket costs, and provider networks. The literature provides limited information regarding the patterns of enrollment, disenrollment, and plan switching generally and among cancer survivors, and what patient sociodemographic, clinical, market, policy, and plan characteristics are associated with enrollment and plan choice. Furthermore, because enrollment and plan selection are not random, it is critical to address this when assessing causal relationships between plan characteristics and cancer-related care. This webinar is designed to address both questions – to examine current patterns of enrollment and plan switching among cancer survivors, and what we know about relevant patterns. The webinar will then examine potential study designs that support causal inference in a complex and dynamic choice environment.

Background Materials

Enrollment

• Jazowsky et al. Comparing Medicare plan selection among beneficiaries with and without a history of cancer.
• Jazowsky et al. Medicare Plan Switching Among Beneficiaries With and Without a History of Cancer.
• Kwon et al. Medigap Protection and Plan Switching Among Medicare Advantage Enrollees With Cancer.

Casual study designs

• Nicholas et al. Is there an advantage? Considerations for researchers studying the effects of the type of Medicare coverage.

Session Chair

Moderator

Panelists