2014: Rural Medicare Advantage Enrollment Update.

Key Data Findings. (1) Reclassification of rural and urban county designations (due to the switch from 2000 census data to 2010 census data) resulted in a 10 percent decline in the number of Medicare eligible Americans living in rural counties in 2014 (from roughly 10.7 million to 9.6 million). These changes also resulted in a decline in the number of MA enrollees considered to be living in a rural area, from 2.19 million to 1.95 million. However, the percentage of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in MA and prepaid plans in rural areas declined only slightly from 20.6 percent to 20.3 percent. (2) Rural Medicare Advantage (MA) and other prepaid plan enrollment in March 2014 was nearly 1.95 million, or 20.3 percent of all rural Medicare beneficiaries, an increase of more than 216,000 from March 2013. Enrollment increased to 1.99 million (20.4 percent) in October 2014. (3) In March 2014, 56 percent of rural MA enrollees were enrolled in Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plans, 29 percent were enrolled in Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) or Point-of-Service (POS) plans, 7 percent were enrolled in Private Fee-for-Service (PFFS) plans, and 8 percent were enrolled in other prepaid plans, including Cost plans and Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) plans. (4) States with the highest percentage of rural Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in MA and other prepaid plans include Minnesota (49.1 percent), Hawaii (41.1 percent), Pennsylvania (35.4 percent), Wisconsin (34.3 percent), New York (30.4 percent), and Ohio (30.1 percent).