Gender Differences in Patient Experience Across Medicare Advantage Plans

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Healthcare Quality
• Health Disparities

Background:

• Medicare beneficiaries choose between fee-for-service and private managed care plans annually.
• Quality measure performance data aids beneficiary decision-making.
• Existing research details quality variations by race/ethnicity, but less is known about gender-based differences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess gender differences in patient experience across six Medicare quality measures.
• To examine how these gender gaps vary among different Medicare plans.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from 300,979 respondents of the 2015-2016 Medicare Advantage Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems surveys.
• Employed case-mix-adjusted linear mixed-effects models to estimate gender differences and their heterogeneity across health plans.

Main Results:

• Nationally, women reported marginally better experiences than men (p < .05) in administrative staff interactions and timely care access.
• Women reported worse experiences regarding "getting needed care," potentially involving physician negotiation.
• Significant plan-level variations in gender gaps were observed, particularly for timely and needed care access (up to 5-6 percentage points).

Conclusions:

• While average national gender differences in patient experience are small, specific measures and plans exhibit larger gaps.
• Identified variations suggest opportunities for targeted quality improvement initiatives within health plans experiencing larger gender disparities.