The purpose of this submission is to request a revision of 0938-0869 (CMS-10050) to continue to collect information from newly enrolled Medicare beneficiaries.
It is critical for CMS to obtain feedback from this group so that the Agency can accurately assess the needs of new Medicare beneficiaries. As part of the effort to determine how to best serve Medicare’s audience, we are requesting approval from OMB for a survey. Using random digit dial and/or an administrative sample, new Medicare beneficiaries will be called and asked to complete the survey via telephone. The results of this survey will be compiled and studied so that communication may be amended to benefit Medicare’s new audience.
We are requesting a three-year clearance, so that the feedback received through the survey may be used continually to update and improve research efforts and policy. The purpose of this submission is to request OMB authorization to collect information from newly enrolled Medicare beneficiaries via the survey tool. A copy of the survey is included as Appendix B.
The survey has the following objectives:
Determine information needs of new Medicare enrollees.
Assess satisfaction with Medicare communication materials.
Assess knowledge of the Medicare program.
Gather information on health behaviors and quality of health care.
The Office of Research and Demonstrations has implemented a market research initiative to understand the information needs and preferences of Medicare beneficiaries. This initiative includes a literature review, an inventory of best practices in the public and private sectors, focus groups with Medicare beneficiaries, and survey information from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS). The MCBS is not distributed to persons newly enrolled in Medicare, a key target group for CMS’s education efforts. Therefore, administering the New Enrollee survey will allow CMS to gather information from new beneficiaries, a target group which does not complete the MCBS.
1. Need and Legal Basis
The New Enrollee survey was developed to gather information from newly enrolled Medicare beneficiaries about their Medicare knowledge and needs.
The national surveys will be administered in English and Spanish over the contract period via telephone. The New Enrollees survey, which is attached, has been used in prior studies. It has been modified to include questions relating to employment status, current medical insurance, Part D, and the Low Income Subsidy. New questions were added, and some questions were deleted depending upon the initiatives and needs of the Agency. All surveys shall keep some questions from the previous survey relating to issues such as beneficiary satisfaction, knowledge of basic Medicare, and information received from Medicare.
2. Information Users
CMS is seeking understanding about what types of information new enrollees need and what they know about Medicare. Included in the survey are questions regarding how well informed new enrollees are about Medicare and what information they have received about the Medicare program. Information gathered in this survey will be used only for purposes of targeting and improving communications with newly eligible Medicare beneficiaries.
3. Use of Information Technology
A Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) system will be used for the national surveys. CMS enrollment files will be accessed to select a sample of people with Medicare. These data do not include telephone numbers, so respondents’ telephone numbers will be obtained from an automated matching service. Respondents’ names and phone numbers will be downloaded into the CATI sample management software module. Survey data will be entered directly into the CATI system as the interview takes place. The use of CATI will enable precise sample management and fast turnaround of data.
The collection of information for this study will be exclusively by telephone, and as such, responses to questions from interviewers will be given orally. In order to conduct the New Enrollee survey telephone data collection, it will be necessary to use the CATI. The CATI system catches unlikely or impossible responses, as well as errors that might have resulted from simple typographical mistakes. The CATI program will be modified to meet the project specifications for respondent contact procedures and interview administration and to incorporate changes and updates to the survey. In addition to changes to the English version of the New Enrollee survey, a Spanish version of the survey will be developed. For each English screen, a duplicate Spanish screen will be created. The CATI will be programmed to allow Spanish-speaking interviewers to change the language of the screen to fit the respondent’s desired language of administration.
This collection is not currently available for completion by respondents electronically.
This collection could not be made available electronically at this time because it is a phone survey.
Since many of the respondents will be 65 years of age or older or disabled, many with vision problems or lack of or discomfort with computers, it is believed that telephone interviewing will yield the best response rates. As such, there are no plans to have this collection made electronic in the future.
Data, once collected, is input electronically.
This collection does not require a signature from the respondent.
Some of the questions in the New Enrollee survey mirror a few of those designed for the National Medicare & You Education Program (NMEP) survey. We incorporated in the New Enrollee survey questions from the NMEP survey so we could have similar information from new and existing beneficiaries. The NMEP survey was not sufficient for our purposes. The NMEP provides a locally representative sample of existing beneficiaries and as such is not representative of the new enrollees intensively studied with the New Enrollee survey assessment.
5. Small Business
Not applicable. The information collection request does not involve any small businesses.
6. Less Frequent Collection
This survey will be fielded once a year in an attempt to receive feedback from those newly enrolled in Medicare during the first three months of their enrollment. Less frequent information collection will not support the required analysis to determine whether Medicare communications are meeting the needs of newly enrolled beneficiaries.
7. Special Circumstances
These are no special circumstances with this information collection request.
8. Federal Register/Outside Consultation
A 60-day Federal Register notice published on June 5, 2009.
9. Payments/Gifts to Respondents
There are no provisions for payments or gifts to respondents.
10. Confidentiality
All information obtained through the surveys will be reported in aggregate. No individual respondent’s information will be reported independently or with identifying information. All identifying information will be removed from analytic files and will be destroyed after the aggregated information is assembled.
11. Sensitive Questions
There are no questions of a sensitive nature on the survey.
12. Burden Estimates (Hours & Wages)
The length of the telephone survey is approximately 15 minutes. There is no cost to respondents other than approximately 15 minutes of their time. The proposed survey will be completed by about 1,200 newly enrolled Medicare beneficiaries once a year. This survey will take 18,000 minutes/300 hours annually.
13. Capital Costs
There is no capital cost associated with this information collection request.
14. Cost to the Federal Government
The estimated cost to the government for conducting the upcoming surveys will be approximately $180,000 in contract costs per survey for labor hours, materials and supplies, overhead, general and administrative costs, and fees. Therefore, the total estimated three year cost would be $540,000. The estimated cost of the 2006 New Enrollee survey was $150,000.
15. Program/Burden Change
This is a revision of a previously approved collection. The total number of respondents has decreased from 2,400 respondents in the 2006 New Enrollee survey
to the current estimate of 1,200 respondents. We have adjusted that annual burden accordingly. The number of respondents decreased because we have reduced the
collection schedule from four times a year to once a year.
16. Publication/Tabulation Dates
For this wave, the survey will be fielded once a year for three years and will focus on changes between previous survey waves in: awareness of new Medicare program initiatives and options; knowledge about Medicare satisfaction and relevance of Medicare communications materials; and beneficiary satisfaction with their information and knowledge. After each wave of testing, the New Enrollee survey will be analyzed to assess whether there has been an increase in knowledge and awareness. Survey results will be fully reported to CMS, to guide communications materials that are sent to new enrollees. It is possible that some survey results will be shared through conferences or other publications.
The schedule for information collection and dissemination of the data for the case studies is from October 2009 to October 2012 with a final report due within 5 weeks of the end of data collection.
17. Expiration Date
Not Applicable. This information collection request does not lend itself to an expiration date since the data collection is being conducted by telephone.
18. Certification Statement
The proposed data collection does not involve any exceptions to the certification statement identified in line 19 of OMB form 83-I.
| File Type | application/msword |
| File Title | Supporting Statements A and B of the New Enrollee Survey OMB Package |
| Subject | Supporting Statements A and B |
| Author | CMS/OEA/CSG/DoR |
| Last Modified By | CMS |
| File Modified | 2009-05-27 |
| File Created | 2009-05-27 |