New Reports Examine the Impact of Medicare Advantage Advertising [View all]

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Two new KFF research reports capture the prolific—and often problematic—nature of Medicare Advantage (MA) television advertisements during Medicare’s fall open enrollment period, as well as the impact of such marketing practices on beneficiaries. Yesterday, Medicare Rights joined KFF to discuss this important topic, including potential solutions for some of the identified problems. This week, we examine the first report, How Health Insurers and Brokers Are Marketing Medicare. We will continue our analysis with the second report, What Do People with Medicare Think About the Role of Marketing, Shopping for Medicare Options, and Their Coverage?, in next week’s Medicare Watch.

The open enrollment period for MA and Part D runs from October 15 through December 7 each year. Beginning October 1, insurers, brokers, and other third-party entities can begin marketing their plans, including through television ads. In advance of this year’s ad blitz, KFF reviewed television spots that aired last fall, examining plan marketing strategies in depth. Key takeaways include:

MA ads were common during the annual enrollment period.

TV airways were flooded with ads for Medicare plans. There were 643,852 airings of English-language Medicare ads run on broadcast television and national cable between October 1, 2022, and December 7, 2022, an average of more than 9,500 airings per day. This is more than were seen for any individual Healthcare.gov open enrollment period between 2013 and 2018. Most—four of every five ads—were sponsored by health insurers, with the remaining sponsored by brokers and other third-party entities, such as marketing companies. Some TV ads used celebrity endorsements to promote MA.Joe Namath was featured more often than any other celebrity, appearing in nearly 10% of all MA ads.

https://www.medicarerights.org/medicare-watch/2023/09/21/new-reports-examine-the-impact-of-medicare-advantage-advertising