CMS has posted its advance rate announcement and draft call letter for Medicare Advantage (MA) and Part D prescription drug plans for 2015. These documents detail updates to payment methodologies, other policies, and program operations for MA organizations and Part D drug plan sponsors. While the factors that impact 2015 rates are complex, CMS generally intends to more closely align MA payments with fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare and improve payment accuracy through a series of rate adjustments. Among other things, CMS notes that its preliminary estimate of the combined effect of the MA growth percentage and the FFS growth percentage is -1.9%. CMS also proposes to apply a -5.16% adjustment to MA plan payments to account for diagnostic coding differences between MA and FFS providers. The call letter addresses numerous policy issues, including encouraging MA organizations to adopt best practices that improve enrollee notification of significant changes in the MA’s provider network (CMS indicates it will consider rulemaking that could limit the timing of such network changes). Comments on the documents will be accepted until March 7, 2014, and the final rate announcement and call letter will be published on April 7, 2014. Also looking ahead, CMS announced in the call letter that it intends to issue a request for information in the coming months about an initiative to partner with private payers to test innovations in health plan design for CMS beneficiaries, including to value-based arrangements, beneficiary engagement and incentives, and/or care coordination.