Beneficiary Survey-Based Feedback on New Medicare Informational Materials

Health Care Financing Review,  Fall, 2001  by Lauren McCormack, A.,  Steven Garfinkel, A.,  Judith Hibbard, H.,  Kerry Kilpatrick, E.,  William D. Kalsbeek

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RESULTS

Descriptive Statistics

Information-Seeking Behavior and Sources of Information

Approximately 90 percent of new and experienced Medicare beneficiaries in the Kansas City MSA feel that choosing a health insurance plan is a very or extremely important decision, and moreover, many feel that it is a difficult decision to make. Specifically, 60 percent of both study populations said the decision is either hard or very hard for them. College educated beneficiaries found the decision easiest. Yet only 18 percent of experienced beneficiaries and 26 percent of new beneficiaries have ever sought out help from another person or organization when choosing a Medicare health plan. The majority of beneficiaries were not aware of State- and federally- funded health insurance counseling services, known collectively as State Health Insurance Assistance Programs, that provide free and unbiased information and counseling about Medicare to beneficiaries and their families. However, about 60 percent of beneficiaries said they would use this type of service if it existed. This supports earlier research indicating that these programs are underutilized, need to perform more outreach, and require additional funding (McCormack, et al., 1996). Recent efforts by CMS to enhance the role of these programs may increase utilization by beneficiaries.

Beneficiaries receive information about their Medicare health plan choices from several different sources (Table 1). Seventy-one percent of experienced and 88 percent of new beneficiaries reported receiving some type of information in the last 6 months about the different types of Medicare health plans. Surprisingly, treatment and control group members were equally likely to report having received information even though no information was sent to controls as part of the study. The most common source for both groups of Medicare-related information was over-whelmingly insurance companies, agents, and/or health plans. Fifty-one percent of experienced beneficiaries and 33 percent of new beneficiaries reported receiving information from this source in the last 6 months. This was also reported to be the most informative source according to both new and experienced beneficiaries. Other common sources included radio and television, direct mail and telephone solicitations, AARP, and the Medicare program. This is consistent with research indicating that television is the most frequently utilized information medium for those age 65 or over (Brown et al., 2000).

About 1 in 10 beneficiaries have ever used the Medicare Web site to obtain information. Use of this information source is likely to grow as the baby-boomer generation ages into Medicare. These data confirm that the intervention materials provided as part of this study were only one of the many places in which beneficiaries could turn for information about Medicare and related health plan options.

Evaluation of the Medicare & You Materials

We asked beneficiaries to look at the intervention materials in order to participate in the study, but gave no guidance on how long they should spend on them. Beneficiaries who received only the handbook spent the most time looking at the information they received (Table 2). About 10 percent of beneficiaries spent less than 15 minutes with the handbook, and almost 30 percent spent more than 1 hour looking at it.