What is a Special Needs Plan?

A special needs plan (SNP) is a Medicare Advantage (MA) coordinated care plan (CCP) specifically designed to provide targeted care and limit enrollment to special needs individuals.  A special needs individual could be any one of the following:

  1. An institutionalized individual,
  2. A dual eligible, or
  3. An individual with a severe or disabling chronic condition, as specified by CMS.

A SNP may be any type of MA CCP, including either a local or regional preferred provider organization (i.e., LPPO or RPPO) plan, a health maintenance organization (HMO) plan, or an HMO Point-of-Service (HMO-POS) plan.  There are three different types of SNPs:

  1. Chronic Condition SNP (C-SNP)
  2. Dual Eligible SNP (D-SNP)
  3. Institutional SNP (I-SNP)