title: Market factors that influence Medicare recipients' choice of health plan.
abstract: This study examines those market factors that were most influential regarding decision making made by Medicare recipients in choosing a particular health insurance plan. Since Medicare recipients can now choose health care insurance providers, companies are actively competing for this possibly very lucrative market share. A cross sectional cohort research design using a sample of 135 subjects was surveyed. Two separate groups of contributing factors to an individual's selection of a plan were measured. Factors such as level of understanding, level of perceived health, and satisfaction with the plan in terms of hospital choice were most important. Surprisingly, preference of marketing media did not provide any significant results.
authors.affiliation: Central Connecticut State University, New Britain 06050, USA.
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Scherban
authors.forename: C H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Nightingale
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003237:Connecticut; D003258:Consumer Behavior / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003657:Decision Making; D003710:Demography; D004467:Economics / Q000639:trends; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008389:Marketing of Health Services / Q000379:methods*; D006278:Medicare