Medicare Ratings System Largely Untapped By Seniors

The federal government's efforts to promote Medicare's new and highly touted Star Quality Ratings for health plans is so far not reaching most of its target audience.

A survey released by Kaiser Permanente during the Medicare open enrollment period this month found that only 18% of Medicare-eligible seniors were familiar with the star quality ratings, and that less than one-third of those seniors used the ratings to pick their health plan. Further, only 2% of 483 Medicare respondents in the Harris Interactive poll said they knew the star rating for their plan.

Jed Weissberg, MD, senior vice president, Hospitals, Quality and Care Delivery Excellence, Kaiser Permanente, told HealthLeaders Media that the low levels of usage aren't that surprising because the Medicare Star Quality Ratings System is fairly new.

"That speaks to (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services') challenge in communicating vital information to 44 million beneficiaries," Weissberg says. "CMS has just put together this very complicated composite measure system over the last year or so. They are starting to call more attention to the rankings, and they are getting experienced with it themselves still."

The star quality rankings compile 50 care quality measures, including preventive screenings, the management of chronic conditions, and customer service. The measures are put into a format that allows Medicare beneficiaries to shop and compare prices and services before buying a plan.

Kaiser Permanente was one of only 12 plans nationally that earned the coveted five-star rating. That select dozen are eligible for about $3 billion in incentive bonuses, and can market their plans throughout the year, and not just in the designated enrollment period. The quality ranking also includes a health outcomes survey which examines temporal changes in overall member health.

Although the KP survey shows most Medicare beneficiaries aren't using the quality rankings, Weissberg says it's probably not practical to expect that physicians or other clinician could help Medicare beneficiaries wade through the quality report. "That is not a task that too many physicians like to entertain because it is almost as confusing for the physicians as it is for the beneficiaries. I am hoping this will be as much a value to them as to the beneficiaries," he says.

And even though usage is low, Weissberg says "CMS has done its best to blend all of these multiple dimensions of quality and service and plan performance into one measure.

"They have taken advantage of prior consumer research looking at how consumers understand rankings and ratings and thus they chose the star system. So it is really a question of how do you get that star ranking in front of the consumer," he says. "I am hoping media and other public services will themselves go to the Website and make that information more available to members in a readily digestible form."

Kaiser Permanente's survey shows that less than 30% of respondents know where to find information about Medicare Star Quality Ratings. CMS offers details on its website. Kaiser Permanente introduced a websitefor the rating system and designed to provide easy answers to frequently asked questions about the system.

This phone survey of 483 Medicare-eligible seniors was conducted Sept. 21-25 by Harris Interactive on behalf of Kaiser Permanente, and has a sampling error of +/- 4 percent