Medicare News
| For Immediate Release: | Contact: |
| Monday, February 12, 2001 | CMS Office of Public Affairs 202-690-6145 |
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MEDICARE+ CHOICE HMO RETURNS TO FIVE COUNTIES IN CENTRAL NEW YORK
The Health Care Financing Administration, the federal agency that administers Medicare, today approved a request by Univera Health Care to re-enter the Medicare+Choice program and offer health care coverage to Medicare beneficiaries in five New York counties where service had been terminated.
The coverage will be available in two full counties in central New York, and parts of three other counties. About 123,000 beneficiaries live in the counties where Univera HealthCare Central New York will offer coverage as early as March 1, 2001. Univera is the only Medicare+Choice option in these counties. (Please see Editor's Note below).
The re-entry of Univera Health Care into the Medicare+Choice program results from The Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Benefits Improvements and Protection Act, signed into law on Dec. 21, 2000. That law infuses $11 billion into the Medicare+Choice program over the next five years. Medicare+Choice organizations that had given HCFA notice of their intent to terminate coverage for Medicare beneficiaries were permitted to rescind that decision by submitting a letter to HCFA by Jan.18, 2001. To date, HCFA has approved requests from four managed care organizations that submitted letters of intent to re-enter the Medicare+Choice program.
The other managed care organizations that will re-enter the Medicare+Choice program are Lovelace Health Plan in Santa Fe and Torrance counties, New Mexico; United Health Care of the Midwest, in Monroe County, Illinois; and St. Joseph Medicare Plus, in Bernalillo, Sandoval, Torrence, and Valencia counties in New Mexico. More than 240,000 Medicare beneficiaries live in areas affected by all four plans.
Currently, of the 39 million people with Medicare, about 5.6 million have chosen to be in a Medicare+Choice organization. Medicare+Choice now contracts with a total of 177 private health plans. The Medicare+Choice program was created by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.
Editor's Note: The two full counties are Onondaga and Cortland. Coverage will be available in three other counties only in certain zip codes:
Cayuga County -- ZIP codes 13033, and 13113;
Oswego County -- ZIP codes 13302, 13493, 13028, 13036, 13069, 13076, 13103, 13114, 13131, 13135, 13167, 13044, 13132;
Madison County -- ZIP codes 13032, 13035, 13037, 13043, 13122, 13030.
