Health plan decision making with new Medicare information materials

Objective. To examine the effect of providing new Medicare information mate rials on consumers' attitudes and behavior about health plan choice. Data Source. New and experienced Medicare beneficiaries who resided in the Kansas City metropolitan statistical area during winter 1998-99 were survey ed. More than 2,000 computer-assisted telephone interviews were completed a cross the two beneficiary populations with a mean response rate of 60 perce nt. Study Design. Medicare beneficiaries were randomly assigned to a control gr oup or one of three treatment groups that received varying amounts and type s of new Medicare information materials. One treatment group received the H ealth Care Financing Administrations's pilot Medicare & You 1999 handbook, a second group received the same version of the handbook and a Medicare ver sion of the Consumer Assessment of Health Plans (CAHPS (R)) report, and a t hird treatment group received the Medicare & You bulletin, an abbreviated v ersion of the handbook. Principal Findings. Results of the study suggest that the federal governmen t's new consumer information materials are having some influence on Medicar e beneficiaries' attitudes and behaviors about health plan decision making. Experienced beneficiary treatment group members were significantly more co nfident with their current health plan choice than control group members, b ut new beneficiaries were significantly less likely to use the new material s to choose or change health plans than control group members. In general t he effects on confidence and health plan switching did not vary across the different treatment materials. Conclusions. The 1999 version of the Medicare & You materials contained a m essage that it is not necessary to change health plans. This message appear s to have decreased the likelihood of using the new materials to choose or change plans, whereas other materials to which beneficiaries are exposed ma y encourage plan switching. Because providing more information to beneficia ries did not result in commensurate increases in confidence levels or rate of health plan switching, factors other than the amount of information, suc h as how the information is presented, may be more critical than volume.