Search Frequenty Asked Questions

Medicare News

More than 32 million copies of the Medicare & You 2000 handbook are being mailed to Medicare beneficiaries' homes this month as part of the Medicare & You campaign, the largest nationwide information program designed to help Medicare beneficiaries in making informed decisions about their health care coverage. The campaign includes quality-of-care reports for managed care plans and opportunities for information feedback, as well as comprehensive background on Medicare benefits and options.

New to the Medicare program for the year 2000 is:

• coverage for prostate cancer screening;
  
  
• the Medicare Choices Helpline, 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227);
  
  
• updated patient satisfaction and plan performance measures available in the handbook, on http://www.medicare.gov and through 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227); and
  
  
• an Internet-based calendar of informational activities in communities across the nation available at http://www.medicare.gov.
  

"It's important for the more than 39 million older and disabled Americans who are covered by Medicare to learn more about the original Medicare plan, managed care plans that are available in their community and preventive benefits that are now covered by Medicare," said Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala. "That's why we are conducting the largest Medicare information campaign ever.

The Medicare & You information program was mandated by Congress in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and is being conducted by the Health Care Financing Administration, the federal agency that runs Medicare. The full information program includes the Medicare&You 2000 handbook; a nationwide toll-free telephone line, 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227); a beneficiary Internet site, http://www.medicare.gov; local and national activities in partnership with organizations that work with Medicare beneficiaries; and an ongoing assessment.

"Medicare beneficiaries will be able to get the most up-to-date and reliable information ever about their Medicare this fall," said HCFA Deputy Administrator Michael Hash. "The mailing of the Medicare & You 2000 handbook, and the updated plan information available at http://www.medicare.gov and through 1-800-MEDICARE will help them make more informed decisions about their health care."

Beginning in the fall of 1998 and continuing through the spring of 1999, HCFA conducted a yearlong evaluation of the Medicare & You campaign, soliciting input from beneficiaries, their families, Congress and organizations that provide care to beneficiaries and help them make health care choices. The evaluation looked at the five-state pilot information campaign in Arizona, Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Washington. Beneficiaries in those states received copies of a 1999 Medicare & You handbook and early access to 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).

"Medicare beneficiaries told us they liked the information they were getting while suggesting ways to make it more useful and easier to understand," said Carol Cronin, director of HCFA"s Center for Beneficiary Services. "We've made improvements to Medicare & You 2000 and the toll-free phone line and the Internet site based on input from these assessments."

The improvements HCFA made to Medicare & You 2000 include:

• Up-front summary. The first three pages of Medicare & You 2000 summarize key information for easy reading and highlights important beneficiary information. Readers are then referred to other pages where they can obtain more details.
  
  
• Additional feedback. A postcard is being placed in a sample of handbooks to gather more feedback from beneficiaries for continuous quality improvement.
  
  
• Local plan quality and performance information. Medicare & You 2000 includes a sample of the quality and beneficiary satisfaction information now available about Medicare managed care plans and some quality information about fee-for-service.
  

The performance measures included in Medicare & You 2000 focus on the percentage of women enrollees in a managed care plan who received screening mammograms. The patient satisfaction measure looks at the percentage of Medicare plan members who said that the doctors in their managed care plan always communicate well. Some of the other measures available at http://www.medicare.gov include patients' overall satisfaction with the health plan; ease of getting referred to specialists; eye exams given after diagnosis of diabetes; treatment of heart attacks with beta blockers and the number of providers who have been with the plan for at least one year. Each of these can be indicators of the quality of care the health plan provides.

"These measures will help beneficiaries evaluate the quality of care that a health plan is providing to the people it serves," said Dr. Robert A. Berenson, director of HCFA's Center for Health Plans and Providers. "Along with the handbook and the website, beneficiaries now have even more information at their fingertips to help them make the right choices about their health care."

The Medicare consumer website, unveiled in June 1998, had more than 800,000 page views in August 1999 and its usage continues to grow. The most-visited sections are Medicare Compare and Nursing Home Compare, which includes comparative information about individual nursing homes nationwide. A new section on http://www.medicare.gov highlights outreach and informational activities in communities across the nation. These include health fairs and other events coordinated and hosted by Medicare and its partners.

HCFA phased in the toll-free Medicare Choices Helpline between November 1998 and March 1999. Through August 1999, the toll-free line averaged about 5,000 calls each week. Many callers request information about the availability of managed care plans in their community. In addition, the three most frequently requested publications are: the Medicare & You handbook with plan comparison data, Learning about Medicare Health Plans , and the Guide to Health Insurance for People with Medicare .

"The new handbook and updated information available on http://www.medicare.gov and through 1-800-MEDICARE allow beneficiaries to customize the information they get and the way they get it," said Cronin. "And, for the first time, beneficiaries will be getting standardized information about managed care plans, from the plans themselves, that supplements the information they get from Medicare and our partners."

Medicare beneficiaries who are interested in enrolling in a managed care plan will be able to receive newly designed Summary of Benefits publications from the plans. These booklets will allow beneficiaries to compare the benefits offered and costs charged by managed care organizations against one another.

"Beneficiaries rely on the health plans to provide them with specific information about the costs and benefits offered by each plan," said Cronin. "These booklets allow beneficiaries to make apples-to-apples comparisons between Medicare managed care plans."

The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 created Medicare+Choice to help modernize Medicare and included a wider range of health plan options, similar to those available to other Americans as well as the Medicare & You campaign. These include preferred-provider organizations, provider-sponsored organizations, medical savings accounts and private fee-for-service plans which will be available when private companies choose to offer them. Original fee-for-service Medicare, currently chosen by more than 33 million Americans, is available nationwide to all beneficiaries. The launch of the Medicare & You campaign is timed to coincide with the first Congressionally mandated open enrollment period which begins in November.

The 39 million Medicare beneficiaries will receive either the Medicare & You 2000 handbook or a postcard that they can mail back to Medicare to request their own copy of the handbook.

"Medicare has been there for millions of older and disabled Americans since it began in 1966 and more than 39 million Americans depend on it now," said Hash. "As Medicare enters the new millennium, we're even more committed to insuring that they have information to make the right health care decisions however they choose to receive their benefits."