Findings on Insurance Reported by Investigators at RAND Corporation (Medicare Advantage Customer Service Is Used Most By Higher-need Patients): Insurance

2024 SEP 05 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- Researchers detail new data in Insurance. According to news reporting originating in Santa Monica, California, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “To examine characteristics of Medicare Advantage (MA) enrollees who use their plan’s customer service to help plans understand how to better meet members’ needs. National sample of 259,533 respondents to MA Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey enrolled in any of the 559 MA contracts in 2022.”

Financial support for this research came from CMS.

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from RAND Corporation, “We assessed the association between self-reported customer service use in the prior 6 months and enrollee demographic, coverage, health, and health care utilization characteristics. We used weighted linear regression models to test for bivariate and multivariate associations between customer service use and enrollee characteristics. Forty-two percent of MA enrollees reported using customer service in the prior 6 months. Use was 20 percentage points (PP) higher for those in poor vs excellent/very good general health, 13 PP higher for those in poor vs excellent/very good mental health, and 14 PP higher for those reporting 3 or more vs no chronic conditions. Those using customer service more often had lower educational attainment, had limited income and assets, preferred another language to English, and had greater health care utilization. MA customer service supports a less healthy, higher-need population with greater-than-average barriers to health care, and so should be designed and staffed to effectively serve medically complex, high-need patients. Commercial plan evidence suggests that continuity in customer service support for a member or a given issue may be helpful.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Customer service is an important mechanism for improving quality and addressing health equity.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Medicare Advantage Customer Service Is Used Most By Higher-need Patients. The American Journal of Managed Care, 2024;30(8). The American Journal of Managed Care can be contacted at: Managed Care & Healthcare Communications Llc, 666 Plainsboro Rd, Ste 300, Plainsboro, NJ 08536, USA.

Our news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Marc N. Elliott, RAND Corporation, 1776 Main St, Santa Monica, CA 90407, United States. Additional authors for this research include Denise D. Quigley, Nate Orr, Ann Haas, Amelia M. Haviland, Sarah Gaillot and Robert Weech-Maldonado.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.37765/ajmc.2024.89589. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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