Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #110977

Deborah A. Levesque, PhD, Carol O. Cummins, MLIS, MEd, James O. Prochaska, PhD, and Janice M. Prochaska, PhD. Pro-Change Behavior Systems, Inc., PO Box 755, West Kingston, RI 02892, 401-874-7023, ccummins@prochange.com

SESSION TITLE: Providing Medicare Information through employers

PRESENTATION TITLE: Employer readiness to serve as Medicare information intermediaries

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has identified employers as potentially valuable intermediaries of Medicare information for pre-retirees, recent retirees, and employees caring for older relatives. However, qualitative research suggests that employers may be reluctant to fill this role. For example, some employers are afraid of liability associated with providing misinformation, and the trend is for human resource departments to reduce services, not increase them. In the last 25 years, the Transtheoretical Model of Change (TTM, or the “stage model”) has arisen as one of the leading approaches to individual behavior change, and recently has been applied to informed health plan choice among new Medicare enrollees. In this presentation, we will describe how the TTM has been used with new enrollees, and how it might be used to increase employers' readiness to serve as information intermediaries. The first step in the application of the Model to employers would be to operationally define what it means to “serve as an information intermediary” (e.g., serving as referral agents to the Medicare website or hotline, or informing employees about their current coverage in relation to the new Medicare Part D prescription coverage, or even providing decision support), and to develop an assessment of readiness to engage in those behaviors. The next step would be to adapt stage-matched principles and processes of change to the employer population to help facilitate progress through the stages of change.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant in this session will be able to

• identify barriers that might inhibit employers from serving in Medicare information intermediaries;
• summarize key research findings on the application of the Transtheoretical Model of change to informed health plan choice among new Medicare enrollees;
• describe the steps involved in the application of the Transtheoretical Model to employers to increase readiness to serve as Medicare information intermediaries.

Keywords: Medicare/Medicaid, Worksite

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.