A comparison of satisfaction levels between traditional and managed care Medicare recipients

The Spokane County health department conducted a survey of randomly selected households in the county. The survey combined several previously validated instruments. Since the purpose of this study was to compare satisfaction levels and access and communication issues of Medicare recipients in Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) to Medicare recipients using the traditional fee-for-service (FFS), a subpopulation was used. The results of this study did not support the findings of previous studies; HMO members were older and had no differences in health status from traditional FFS members. HMO members were more educated, had higher incomes, and were more satisfied with their care than the FFS group. The authors suggest that these differences from previous studies may be due to the fact that the majority of HMO respondents are in not-for-profit HMOs which return a fairly high proportion of the insurance premium to the patients in the form of medical care. They also suggest that not-for-profit HMOs may be different than for-profits due to the lack of pressure to return profits to the stockholders.