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Melissa Andel on Adding Dental, Hearing, Vision Benefits to Medicare
It’s right to acknowledge that dental, hearing, and vision are important for total health care for Medicare beneficiaries, said Melissa Andel, MPP, vice president of health policy at CommonHealth Solutions.
It’s right to acknowledge that dental, hearing, and vision are important for total health care for Medicare beneficiaries, said Melissa Andel, MPP, vice president of health policy at CommonHealth Solutions.
There are considerations to add dental, hearing, and vision benefits to Medicare: what impact might that have on seniors’ health?
I don't think anybody disputes the importance of dental health as part of a person's overall physical health. And then, obviously, vision and hearing is just as important. And so, to make sure that the component are available to all Medicare beneficiaries, not just those beneficiaries who are in Medicare Advantage plans, you know, and now that about 40% of Medicare beneficiaries do have those benefits through Medicare Advantage plans. But I do think that it's a good idea to add that.
The process of adding it and how you go about doing that and how you set the fee schedule and payments and work that out with the dentist and the audiologists and the optometrists, you know, that is a whole other discussion. But I do think it is right to acknowledge that those 3 things are important for total health care.
Inside the Center's MDD Value Model and Its Use of Dynamic Pricing
May 13th 2025Larragem Raines, MS, of the Center for Innovation & Value Research, discusses the organization's major depressive disorder (MDD) open-source value model, dynamic pricing, and the future role of artificial intelligence in care.
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Managed Care Reflections: A Q&A With John Michael O’Brien, PharmD, MPH
May 5th 2025To mark the 30th anniversary of The American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC), each issue in 2025 includes reflections from a thought leader on what has changed over the past 3 decades and what’s next for managed care. The May issue features a conversation with John Michael O’Brien, PharmD, MPH, a member of AJMC’s editorial board and the president and CEO of the National Pharmaceutical Council. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
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