HealthPocket’s new Infostat examined the prevalence of additional vision, dental, and hearing benefits in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. We found that 97% of MA plans offered at least one vision, dental, or hearing benefit in both 2013 and 2014. The percentage of plans that offered all three benefits decreased from 47% in 2013 to 42% in 2014.
Percentage of plans that offer vision, dental, or hearing benefits
| Additional Benefit | 2013 MA | 2013 MA-PD | 2013 MA (no PD) | 2014 MA | 2014 MA-PD | 2014 MA (no PD) |
| At least one | 97 | 97 | 98 | 97 | 96 | 97 |
| Vision | 95 | 94 | 98 | 94 | 93 | 96 |
| Dental | 73 | 75 | 56 | 71 | 73 | 55 |
| Hearing | 62 | 62 | 62 | 59 | 59 | 55 |
| All three | 47 | 49 | 32 | 42 | 43 | 28 |
The percentage of MA plans with drug benefits (MA-PD) that offered all three additional benefits decreased from 49% in 2013 to 43% in 2014. Moreover the percentage of MA-PD plans that offered at least one vision, dental, or hearing benefit was 97% in 2013 and 96% in 2014.
As for MA plans without drug benefits, the percentage that offered at least one vision, dental, or hearing benefit was 98% in 2013 and 97% in 2014. The percentages that offered vision or hearing benefits were within 4% of the corresponding percentages for MA-PD plans. However the percentage of MA plans without drug benefits that offered dental benefits was 56% in 2013 and 55% in 2014, considerably lower than the percentage of MA-PD plans in 2013 (75%) and 2014 (73%) that offered dental benefits. Likewise the percentage of MA plans without drug benefits that offered all three additional benefits was only 32% in 2013 and 28% in 2014.
