As Medicare Advantage product teams finalize their 2027 bids, the pressure is on. Decisions made now will shape not only benefit design, but also the operational complexity plans will live with for years to come.
For teams designing Special Needs Plans (SNPs), one question keeps surfacing:
Are we including in-home care and services in this bid—and can we actually deliver them well?
The short answer: Plans should, and for the most part are, including them.
And the good news for product and operations teams, plans don’t have to operationalize these services alone.
In-Home Care Is Becoming Core to SNP Product Design
Across D-SNPs, C-SNPs, and I-SNPs, in-home services like personal care and home health are no longer “nice to have.” They support:
- Members with complex, chronic needs
- Aging-in-place strategies
- Reduced avoidable utilization
- Better overall member experience
Product teams increasingly recognize that strong in-home benefits make SNPs more competitive—especially as plans look to differentiate on experience, not just coverage, while reaping the improved outcome rewards of lower cost, high impact services.
But there’s a catch.
Learn how Dina accelerates start of care for personal care services, home health, and LTSS while creating in-year operational savings.
Set up a quick meet and greet call today.
The Real Challenge: Operationalizing What You Design
Including in-home care is forward-looking and the right move.
Operationalizing at high quality levels that defend the member experience without introducing a significant administrative burden is hard.
Product teams know the tradeoffs:
- Building and maintaining provider networks is resource-intensive
- Care coordination across medical and non-medical services is complex
- Capacity fluctuates across geographies and seasons
- Running this in-house requires staffing, technology, and constant oversight
As CMS’ 2026 finalized policies reinforce accountability for delivering bid benefits—and the proposed 2027 rule signals renewed attention to member experience—plans face increasing pressure to ensure benefits actually work in the real world.
That pressure often lands back on product.
Why This Matters for 2027—and Beyond
Even as CMS proposes changes to Star Ratings methodology for 2027, the underlying signal is consistent:member experience still matters.
In-home care sits squarely at the intersection of:
- Operational execution
- Member satisfaction
- Grievances, access issues, and care continuity
If services are delayed, hard to schedule, or poorly coordinated, members feel it immediately—and those experiences surface through engagement, retention, performance, and ultimately grievances and Stars overtime.
Product teams designing SNPs today are not just shaping a benefit package. They’re shaping how members will experience the plan.
Dina: Making In-Home Care Easy to Operationalize
Dina exists to help health plans operationalize in-home care without building and managing it themselves.
We partner with product, operations, and care teams to turn plan design into reliable delivery—at a fraction of the cost of running these programs in-house. Our agentic network management approach streamlines provider and agency onboarding while our coordination platform significantly reduces operational load.
What Dina Enables:
- Access to in-home services:
Including personal care and home health, designed for complex populations. - Streamlined network management
Dina combines an agentic digital workforce with a coordination platform to source, onboard, and manage provider capacity. - Care coordination that actually scales
Centralized visibility into referrals, scheduling, and service delivery—so members don’t fall through the cracks. - Lower operational burden for product teams
No need to stand up new teams, build technology, or manage fragmented vendors.
Proof That the Model Works
Programs like SCAN’s EMBRACE I-SNP highlight the growing role of integrated, in-home-centered care for older adults and complex populations. These models work when care is coordinated, services are accessible, and the operational backbone is strong.
Dina supports the same philosophy and is proud to be the EMBRACE team’s coordination partner.
Product Teams Closing 2027 Bids
As you finalize your 2027 SNP bids, ask yourself:
- As we include personal care and other home-based services, are we confident that members will be able to access them?
- Do we have a realistic plan to operationalize them?
- Is our network team ready to absorb and maintain in-home service providers in addition to their core roles?
- Or should we partner with a platform designed to do this at scale?
Including in-home care can make your SNP more competitive. Delivering it well can make it sustainable. Dina is ready to partner. In short, we help health plans:
- Confidently include in-home care – from personal care to home health to hospice and more – in SNP bids
- Reduce operational complexity and cost
- Deliver a better member experience
- Set the foundation for stronger performance over time
If you’re designing SNP products for 2027 and looking for a smarter way to operationalize in-home services, let’s connect: info@dinacare.com
