Medicare Advantage Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans (D-SNPs) are designed to provide services to people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid.

They are a large part of the Medicare coverage landscape and growing. By 2022, 4.1 million dual eligibles, or roughly 30 percent of all dual eligibles, were enrolled in D-SNPs.

In their September 2022 article, Eric Roberts and Jennifer Mellor compare experiences among dual eligibles enrolled in D-SNPs, other MA plans, and traditional Medicare.

They find that "dual eligibles in D-SNPs generally had greater access to care, use of preventive services, and satisfaction with care than dual eligibles in traditional Medicare."

However, enrollment in D-SNPs "was associated with fewer and smaller improvements in care among dual eligibles of color than among their non-Hispanic White counterparts."

Eric Roberts discusses the research in greater detail on a new episode of A Health Podyssey.

For more content on the dually eligible population, check out the Medicare and Medicaid Integration series published on Health Affairs Forefront.

Articles in the series feature policy analysis, proposals, and commentary that inform policies to advance integrated care for those dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid.

Today in Health Affairs Forefront, Cara Hunt and coauthors discuss how the decentralized trial model is particularly salient for pediatric gene therapy research, in which child patients and their caregivers face extraordinary logistical, social, and financial barriers to research participation.

Elevating Voices: Hispanic Heritage Month: In a November 2021 Forefront article, Andrea Thoumi and coauthors argue that key policy steps to address structural health equity gaps include removing systemic barriers to access, creating incentives to sustain community partnerships, and creating incentives to enable community-based care delivery models.

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