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Medicare: CMS's Beneficiary Education and Outreach Efforts for the Medicare Prescription Drug Discount Card and Transitional Assistance Program

GAO-06-139R Published: Nov 18, 2005. Publicly Released: Nov 30, 2005.
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Highlights

The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 required the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to broadly disseminate information on the program to the millions of Medicare beneficiaries--seniors and people under age 65 with permanent disabilities--who are eligible for a drug discount card. In response, CMS began education and outreach efforts designed to publicize the availability and features of the drug discount cards, provide information to facilitate beneficiary choice, and assist beneficiaries with the enrollment process. Congress asked us to provide information on CMS's efforts because the agency's experience in supporting the drug card program may yield important insights relevant to implementing the new prescription drug benefit that becomes effective in 2006. In this report, we (1) describe CMS's education and outreach efforts in support of the drug card program and review assessments of these efforts by public and private health care research organizations and (2) provide data on enrollment in the drug card program and identify factors that may have limited this enrollment.

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Topics

Customer serviceDrugsGovernment information disseminationHealth care cost controlHealth care programsMedicarePublic assistance programsPrescription drugsBeneficiariesCivil service retirement system