Advancing Cancer Care Research in Medicare Advantage: Examining the Issues, Data, Measures, and Methods

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 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