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1991.08.26 :  Current Medicare Beneficiary Survey

Contact: Bob Hardy 202-245-6145
August 26, 1991

     HHS Secretary Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., announced today that a
comprehensive, long-range national health survey of the nation's
Medicare beneficiaries will begin in September. 
     The Health Care Financing Administration, the HHS agency
charged with administering the Medicare program, awarded a five-
year, $33 million contract to Westat, Inc., a Rockville, Md.,
research firm, to conduct the study, which is called the "Current
Beneficiary Survey."
     "The study will assess beneficiaries' health status, the types
of health services they need and use, and how they pay for medical
services, including those not covered by Medicare," Dr. Sullivan
said.  "This information will better prepare us to plan health care
services, analyze health care policy issues and estimate the cost
of future federal health care legislation." 
     HCFA Administrator Gail R. Wilensky, Ph.D., said the survey is
the first such study in more than a decade to be undertaken by
Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the aged and
disabled.  Medicare currently covers more than 34 million people,
of whom about 3 million are disabled and some 150,000 are renal
disease patients. 
     In preparation for the national study, Westat conducted a
pilot survey for HCFA earlier this year in sections of Alabama, 
Colorado, Maryland and Michigan.  Some 260 beneficiaries were
surveyed.   The results are now being compiled and analyzed.  
     The national study will include detailed interviews with
approximately 12,000 Medicare beneficiaries in 100 sampling areas
in 38 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.  Scientific
random sampling techniques were used by Westat to select both the
sampling areas and the beneficiaries.  The interviews will be
conducted by about 200 professionally trained and supervised Westat
employees starting Sept. 1.
     The representative sampling of beneficiaries includes men and
women in different age groups, the sick and well, and the
institutionalized and non-institutionalized, according to Dr.
Wilensky, who said letters were sent to each of them explaining the
survey and asking that they volunteer to participate.  Those who
agree will be interviewed three times a year at four-month
intervals over a period of at least three years.  The interviews
will yield a timed series of data for each respondent reflecting
health services utilization, and sources of payment.  Other data
considered are health insurance coverage, health status, assets and
income, and family supports, as well as demographic and behavioral
information.
     Participants will not be required to respond to questions they
do not want to answer, and their Medicare benefits will not 
be affected in any way by the answers they provide or by whether
they decide to participate in the study.  Information collected
will be confidential and used solely for statistical purposes.   
       "While HCFA has considerable information about health care
utilization and costs in the nation," Dr. Wilensky said, "the
agency does not have detailed information about services not
covered by Medicare, and the sources of payment other than
Medicare.  We also need data on persons who do not use Medicare
services or about beneficiary characteristics that determine the
use of health care services.  The survey is designed to produce
this information," she said, noting that it is being undertaken at
a time when the age and ethnic composition of the Medicare
population and the pattern of utilization of Medicare services are
changing.

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