Every year about 200,000 persons aging into Medicare face a health care market too complex for many of them to make informed health plan choices without assistance. Because they are vulnerable to potentially serious health and financial consequences of an uninformed plan choice, prospective Medicare beneficiaries would benefit from considering comparative quality information in their plan choice. Considerable research had focused on measuring and presenting health plan quality information to consumers. However, no research has examined how best to develop a system to integrate comparative quality, cost, and benefit information with motivational, educational and decision support in a way that works for aging persons with limited education. This study will develop and evaluate this integrated information and decision support strategy for use by employee benefits staff in counseling employees aged 60-64 about their Medicare plan options.
The specific aims are to: 1) identify counseling practices and materials benefits counselors use to assist employees with Medicare plan choices; 2) understand the challenges benefits staff face when educating employees about Medicare health plan choices and the use of quality, and determine how best to address these challenges from the benefits counselors' perspective; 3) develop, test, and evaluate print materials that, a) help benefits counselors do a better job in helping 60-64 year old employees make good Medicare decisions, b) integrate quality measures, costs, and benefits in a way that employees will include these factors in their choice, and c) address the needs of less educated employees who may have limited access to decision support resources outside their workplace; and 4) assess the feasibility of an innovative computer-based prototype as an alternative to paper guide dissemination. The research methods investigators will use to achieve these aims are case studies, plan choice, material design, cognitive testing, a laboratory experiment, a small- scale demonstration and evaluation, and a computer feasibility sub-study. Findings will further the consumer health information field and inform policy decisions regarding effective plan choice information and assistance dissemination strategies, especially for less educated consumers.
