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GAO Faults Medicare Help Lines

July 11, 2006

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Telephone hotlines set up to help consumers cope with the new Medicare drug benefit aren’t providing all that much help, according to a report by the General Accountability Office. The GAO report says the people answering consumers' questions are mostly providing inaccurate or incomplete information.

The "help" lines are operated by private insurance companies and are intended to provide a key point of contact between providers and beneficiaries. They were set up to keep consumers informed about all their options under an admittedly complex system, known as Medicare Part D.

However, the GAO says that is far from reality. The agency’s study found that two-thirds of questions submitted to call centers of ten of the largest prescription drug plans were answered with incorrect or only partial responses.

The GAO report said investigators placed more than 800 calls in March to help lines run by sponsors of the 10 largest private Medicare prescription drug plans. While 96 percent of the calls were answered within five minutes, the investigators found the information to be accurate and complete from 20 percent to 60 percent of the time. Only one insurer was able to provide accurate and complete information on more than 50 percent of the calls.

The report is the latest to lob criticism at the government’s new entitlement program, which began offering benefits in May. Another report has cited problems with the government's 800-MEDICARE call center, though Medicare officials say those problems have now been corrected.

Insurance providers who operate the call centers have taken issue with the report, claiming investigators posed questions that operators were forbidden by law to discuss. The report was requested by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who has been an outspoken critic of the Medicare plan.

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