title: Study of Medicare beneficiary complaint procedures.
abstract: New procedures for reviewing a sample of Medicare beneficiary complaints about quality of care are compared with traditional procedures at a peer review organization (PRO) for 1998-1999. These new procedures included: (1) expanded communications with complainants and providers, (2) changed data collection methods, (3) integrated concurrent review findings from other agencies, (4) expedited review procedures, and (5) changed the medical review procedures. The findings showed improved beneficiary satisfaction with the new procedures over the traditional procedures and shorter time periods for processing the reviews. Even with the new procedures, beneficiaries continued to be concerned that the review time frames were too lengthy, the reviews generally failed to confirm their complaints, and the PROs generally did not disclose the findings to the beneficiaries.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Harrington
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hanawi
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ramirez
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Parker
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Giammona
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tantaros
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Newman
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D014487:Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S.; D006801:Humans; D006278:Medicare / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D016134:Organizational Policy; D010344:Patient Advocacy; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D018024:Peer Review, Health Care; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D014481:United States