Medicare & You: Consumer Research on Messages to Prevent Medical Errors

Preventing Medical Errors: Communicating a Role for Medicare Beneficiaries

This study used a focus group methodology to examine how Medicare beneficiaries reacted to messages on specific kinds of preventive action, including those adopted by public and private section health organizations. Beneficiaries were asked to rank the messages on their own, and then to discuss their rankings in focus groups. The best-received messages advocated a collaborative patient-provider...

What you need to know about Medicare Part D.

CMS's Consumer Information Efforts

In this issue of the Health Care Financing Review, we focus on consumer information for the Medicare population. Over the last several years the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has increased its efforts to provide clear and useful information to Medicare beneficia­ ries to help them make more informed health care decisions. The emphasis on consumer information increased dramati­ ...

Direct-to-consumer marketing of durable medical equipment.

T commercials are pervasive. Every time I hear the line, “I got a new scooter, and it didn’t cost me a dime,” I get an uneasy feeling, since the main message comes across as how to get “free stuff” from Medicare. It’s not surprising that some of the companies that provide scooters, oxygen, diabetes supplies, and various durable medical equipment (DME) have been investigated for fraud and abuse....

Beneficiaries' Perceptions of New Medicare Health Plan Choice Print Materials

This article presents findings from a study involving seven focus groups with aged and disabled Medicare beneficiaries in the Kansas City area regarding their impressions of a pilot version of the Medicare & You 1999 handbook and the Medicare Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Study (CAHPS) survey report. Beneficiaries generally had positive reactions to both booklets and viewed the handbook a...