Summary: Medicare beneficiaries need more and better information so that they can make informed decisions when choosing a health plan. Although Medicare is the nation's largest purchaser of managed care services, it lags behind other large purchasers in providing comparative information to beneficiaries. The need for this information grows more urgent each month as tens of thousands of beneficiaries join the 4 million beneficiaries who have already opted for Medicare managed care. The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) is moving in the right direction by making information available, but GAO believes that HCFA could, with relatively little time and effort, do much more. Requiring that health maintenance organizations use standard terminology and formats to describe benefits, producing comparison charts and ensuring that interested beneficiaries know how to get such charts, and analyzing and publishing comparative data already available (such as disenrollment rates) would greatly enhance the ability of Medicare beneficiaries to be wise consumers of managed care.
