Application to Use Burden/Hours from Generic PRA Clearance:
Generic Social Marketing & Consumer Testing Research
(CMS-10437, OMB 0938-1247)
Generic Information Collection (GenIC) #16: Qualitative Testing of Creative Materials for Medicare
Office of Communications (OC)
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
To determine the best education and outreach methods to inform beneficiaries and providers of key changes to Medicare that will affect them, the Office of Communications and their research contractors will be conducting qualitative research to test creative concepts with key Medicare audiences.
The creative testing conducted in this study is essential to achieving the mandates of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). The law includes major changes to Medicare and CHIP, and effective outreach and education strategies will be required to inform CMS target audiences who will be impacted by these changes, especially beneficiaries, providers, and practice management staff. Creative testing of outreach and education concepts and message strategies can ensure that they are as effective as possible for their intended audience. There are some notable sections of the legislation where timely consumer research would be particularly useful:
Communication related to provider payment reform and collection of quality measures, including implementation of the Quality Payment Program (MACRA, Sec. 101 and 102)
Communication related to open enrollment (MACRA, Sec. 209)
Communication related to how consumers can use quality information to make better-informed decisions (MACRA, Sec. 104)
Communication related to provider and administrator burden (MACRA, Sec. 106)
Communication related to the Social Security Number Removal Initiative (MACRA, Sec. 501)
Communication related to the option to receive Medicare Summary Notice electronically (MACRA, Sec. 508)
Communication related to prevention of fraud (MACRA, Sec. 502, 504, 505, 506)
No deviations are requested.
There will be up to 100 focus groups, with up to 10 participants per group. Therefore, up to 1,000 people will participate in this study. Participants will include beneficiaries and Medicare providers.
The data will be collected via focus groups conducted in various markets throughout the country. The focus groups are expected to take approximately 90 minutes. The total approved burden ceiling of the generic ICR is 26,588 hours. We are requesting a total deduction of 1,500 hours from the approved burden ceiling (1,000 participants x 1.50 hours = 1,500 hours).
Respondents will be offered a cash incentive consistent with the government-wide incentive rate of $75 for a 90-minute focus group. This level of participant incentive is in keeping with that specified in the original Supporting Statement for this collection, i.e., in accordance to OMB Circular A-21, section C, and subsection 3 “Reasonable Costs”. A more detailed justification for providing incentives is appended to this application.
CMS hopes to begin this collection as soon as clearance can be obtained and continue data collection until burden hours are reached.
The following attachments are provided for this information collection:
Qualitative Testing of Creative Materials for Medicare Focus Group Guide
Justification for Providing Incentives for Participation in Marketing Research – Qualitative Studies
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | CMS |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-12 |