Three health plans will resume marketing their private fee-for-service plans to Medicare beneficiaries, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced. The plans -- Coventry Health Care Inc., Universal American Financial Corp., and WellCare Health Plans Inc. -- are among seven health plans that agreed to voluntarily stop all marketing activities until CMS determined they were compliant with its marketing requirements. CMS said it found the three plans to be compliant, and is scheduling reviews with the remaining four plans (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, Humana Inc., Sterling Life Insurance Co., and UnitedHealth Group). CMS encourages health care providers and Medicare beneficiaries to report suspected prohibitive marketing practices by calling (800) MEDICARE or their CMS Regional Office. (Regional Office contacts are listed online at
www.cms.hhs.gov.) Beneficiaries in a private FFS plan who may have been misled or given incorrect information also can call (800) MEDICARE for help in selecting a new plan, CMS said.
