While most healthcare facilities come across as clinically sterile, a facility in Miami has uniformed doormen, replete with white gloves, escorting patients into a lobby resembling a luxury hotel, where patients are offered refreshments while waiting to see the doctor. As the Miami Herald reports, this approach sets Leon Medical Centers’ Healthy Living Facility apart from others in the managed-care Medicare world (paywall alert).
The Medicare Advantage plan offered by Leon Medical Centers Health Plans is one of four plans in Florida that earned a five-star rating from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services. All of those plans are offered by Cigna.
As the Herald reports, seniors in South Florida have dozens of highly-rated plans to choose from, and competition for enrollees is fierce. The star ratings aren’t just for consumers who are shopping around for a plan; companies that sponsor plans that earn three stars or more in 2014 will get bonus payments in 2014 from CMS. In 2015, as Avalere Health explains, only plans with four or five stars will get bonuses.