For many patients who trusted their Medicare Advantage plans would be a helpful way to ensure care for the long haul, many are finding critical disadvantages ranging from gaps in local provider access to a lack of available promised services.

For others, it can be worse.

As Dave Lieber from the Dallas Morning News writes, one patient’s Medicare Advtange plan completely pulled up stakes.

From the article:

As his first cancer radiation treatment approached, his Medicare Advantage was canceled

Talk about horrible timing. How do you handle a crisis? Step 1: Panic. Step 2: Gain control.

When John Wieden of Keller opened the envelope last month, its contents startled him. His Medicare Advantage health insurance account, with whom he was a happy customer for 10 years, is suddenly shutting down.

The timing was awful.

Days before he learned he needed to undergo a series of radiation treatments for cancer.

He told The Watchdog, “The shocker is when, first of all, you’re told you have cancer. And the second shocker is your health insurance is being non-renewed. You go ‘oh boy.’ That’ll get the adrenaline flowing.”

The closure of Care N’ Care Insurance Co. of Farmers Branch was first reported in detail by D magazine’s CEO Healthcare. Their story stated that 125 employees would lose their jobs as the insurance plan winds down.

The letter from Care N’ Care to Wieden did not give specific reasons. But it appears that federal government adjustments to pricing in 2025 are expected to hurt the bottom line of some Medicare Advantage plans.

In a letter to its providers, Care N’ Care blames “lowering the benchmark for health care costs … coupled with increasing market pressures resulted in an untenable environment for smaller Medicare Advantage plans like Care N’ Care.”

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