Medicare survey begins this month

By Staff
Special to The Star
Feb. 14, 2001
A new survey of Medicare beneficiaries will help refine efforts to improve the quality of health care services provided to Medicare beneficiaries, especially flu shots and pneumonia shots.
A spokesman for the Health Care Financing Administration the federal agency that administers the Medicare program said Abt Associates will conduct a telephone survey among Medicare beneficiaries.
Beginning this month and continuing through May, randomly selected Medicare beneficiaries will receive a letter from Abt Associates describing the project. The main purpose of the letter is to alert these beneficiaries that they will receive a call from the company and, more importantly, to confirm that this telephone survey is an authorized Medicare project.
It emphasizes that participation in the survey will in no way affect an individual's Medicare benefits. It also says that any information collected in the survey will remain confidential. The survey responses will only be reported as a group, and they will not identify any individual Medicare beneficiary. A return postcard will be enclosed with the letter.
The Medicare beneficiary can complete and return the postcard to show the best times for the survey interviewer to call and to indicate whether the beneficiary prefers to receive a call from a Spanish speaking interviewer. The phone survey takes about five-eight minutes to complete.
For additional information, visit the official project website www.flustudy.org. or call the toll-free hot-line at 1-800-MEDICARE.