Medicare Education and Decision Support Tools

DESCRIPTION (provided by the applicant): This project will create a web-based software program that collects information from users, applies expert decision rules against a national database, recommends a mixture of health insurance plan types for that individual, and facilitates planning for healthcare coverage and its costs for adults as they approach and pass retirement age. Consumers will be able to make better health insurance decisions, saving premium dollars and managing their out-of-pocket costs and risks more effectively. The tool will permit them to make better choices about indemnity versus managed care models, avoid unintended gaps in coverage or overlapping coverage, and make sure they take necessary steps in a timely fashion. Consumers will also be able to forecast the future costs of health insurance and healthcare, to ensure their retirement plans are adequate. As their needs change or as the health insurance landscape changes, they will be able return to the ystem to determine whether these changes affect their health insurance needs or costs. And they can do all of this with minimal expenditure of time and effort. Overarching research objectives have been designed to provide the framework for a series of post-test evaluation initiatives associated with assessing the value of the product as it goes through the planned stages of development: (1) To determine the quality of the retirement healthcare plan software program users develop based on their current circumstances and preferences. (2) To determine whether the Phase II software program users develop their retirement healthcare plans in a more time-efficient manner than users of existing resources. (3) To assess the level of confidence software program users have that the retirement healthcare plan developed for them meets their needs, given their circumstances and preferences.