GAO says Medicare hot line often wrong

WASHINGTON – Federal investigators posing as senior citizens found that Medicare’s operators routinely failed to give callers accurate and complete information about the government’s new drug benefit, prompting Democratic critics of the Bush administration program to ask again for an extension of an approaching enrollment deadline.

The Government Accountability Office investigators said that about one-third of their calls resulted in faulty responses or no response at all because of disconnected calls. The accuracy rates varied a great deal based on the question, but when it came to one of the most important questions, operators provided the right answer only 41 percent of the time. That question concerned which drug plan cost the least for a beneficiary based on certain drug needs.

“These findings also point to larger problems,” said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. “Because of inaccurate or incomprehensible information, seniors haven’t been given a fair shake. The president should extend the May 15th enrollment deadline and not penalize seniors for the administration’s errors.”

Mark McClellan, the Bush administration’s point man on Medicare, defended the agency’s customer service when asked about the GAO’s report.

“I’m very concerned with it being incomplete, inaccurate and out-of-date,” McClellan told members of a House Ways and Means subcommittee on Wednesday.

The GAO’s investigators called the 1-800-Medicare line 500 times from Jan. 17 through Feb. 7. They asked five questions – each question 100 times. To develop questions, investigators considered topics on the Medicare Web site.

The GAO also kept track of how long it took for operators to answer the phone. Three-quarters of the calls resulted in operators answering within five minutes. However, for more than one in 10 calls, it took operators more than 15 minutes to answer.

“In one case, we were placed on hold for 54 minutes before being disconnected,” the GAO reported.

The investigators also looked at the federal government’s Web site, as well as the information described in a handbook sent to all beneficiaries. They found problems there as well.

Mike Leavitt, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said Wednesday that his agency has fixed some of the problems cited by the investigators, particularly the wait times for the Medicare hot line.

Leavitt said he continued to oppose any extension of the May 15 enrollment deadline.