Market Strategies, Inc. (MSI) announced key findings from its latest tracking study of more than 8,000 Medicare beneficiaries. MSI's study found that Prescription Drug Plan (PDP) enrolled beneficiaries continue to experience few problems in obtaining their medications and, overall, express strong satisfaction with the Part D program. Driving beneficiary satisfaction is their positive perspective on the value of their plan, limited number of obstacles faced in obtaining prescription drugs and lower out-of-pocket expenses realized since joining the Part D program.
On the other hand, for beneficiaries who have reached or expect to reach the coverage gap, dissatisfaction runs deep and there is little likelihood that they will remain with their current plan when it comes time to re-enroll for 2007.
"Quite frankly," noted Peter Carlin, Sr. Vice President of MSI's Global Life Sciences Division, "the level of dissatisfaction amongst those in the coverage gap is as astounding as the overall satisfaction of those beneficiaries who are not in the gap." MSI's study also found that all beneficiaries appear willing to switch to less expensive medications. "Beneficiaries in our study are willing to try generics or other brand drugs to reduce their out-of-pocket costs. It's very clear that few of the beneficiaries who are switching to a lower cost drug have any enduring loyalty to their brand drug," stated Carlin.
"Not too surprisingly, low cost is a driving force behind satisfaction numbers," according to Jack Fyock, Ph.D., and Head of MSI's Medicare Strategy Division. "As a result, PDPs may be more like commodities amongst beneficiaries and subject to high turnover rates should another plan offer a lower priced option, or if plans increase their monthly premium or co-pay costs substantially in the upcoming year."
"The findings also suggest that Humana enjoys higher satisfaction levels than other companies. Humana's higher satisfaction scores are likely due to two key factors; low monthly premiums and their focused strategy to keep beneficiaries informed about their coverage. Humana's higher satisfaction ratings also could be related to their pricing structure and the possibility that healthier beneficiaries opted for a lower-cost plan at the end of the enrollment period," Fyock stated. "As May 15th approached, a greater number of healthy beneficiaries who wanted to avoid the lifetime penalty may have joined Humana due to their low costs, and our data suggests that this strategy may have paid off since Humana had fewer members enter or approach the coverage gap where satisfaction levels plummet."
"Finally, current projections estimate that 10.4 million beneficiaries enrolled in a PDP. Given the higher rates of dissatisfaction among those who have entered or anticipate entering the coverage gap, we can expect that upwards of 650,000 beneficiaries will likely be very open to messages about switching their coverage to a new plan or new company," stated Fyock.
This study is MSI's sixth wave of research, reaching over 8,000 total Medicare beneficiaries.
MSI's study featured 1,000 interviews conducted with individuals age 65 and older via telephone between August 12 and August 25. Significance testing was done throughout the study at the 5% significance level. Generally, a 95% confidence interval can be obtained by adding or subtracting 3.2% from a proportion based upon the full sample.
