Helping Medicare beneficiaries choose health insurance: the illness episode approach.
Lacking objective, comprehensible information about health care coverage options, Medicare beneficiaries rarely understand the consequences of alternative purchasing decisions. We describe the Illness Episode Approach, a method providing information on Medicare itself, Medigap policies, and HMOs. The method presents calculations of seniors' out-of-pocket costs under different insurance options for 13 common illnesses.
Sofaer
S
S
School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles 90024-1772.
Davidson
B N
BN
Goodman
R D
RD
Grier
R
R
Kenney
E
E
Monk
N
N
Ross
A
A
D000368:Aged; D003657:Decision Making; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health; D006278:Medicare; D014481:United States