Beneficiary Incentives to Participate in Alternative Health Plans

To control program costs, Medicare is trying new ways to pay for services. One method is to pay alternative health plans (AHPs) a fixed per-capita amount to provide Medicare-covered services to beneficiaries who enroll in the plan. This Note describes the design for a survey of Medicare beneficiaries that will obtain data about preferences for alternative health plans. Specifically, the study is designed to determine (1) what plan benefits Medicare beneficiaries value most, (2) what restrictions on provider choice are most influential in the decision to join AHPs, (3) how price affects the decision, and (4) what is the expected degree of biased selection in new systems.