Medicare “hotline” frustrates callers, hang ups are common

Callers to the U.S.government’s hotline for the Medicare health program for seniorcitizens are increasingly frustrated by the service, according to apoll released on Thursday.  The Department of Health and HumanServices’ inspector general reported 71 percent of those who completedcalls to the 1-800-MEDICARE line were satisfied in 2007, a drop of 13percentage points from 2004 data.  Medicare added a prescription drugbenefit to its health plan in 2006, which led to much confusion asrecipients faced hundreds of private and public choices. Caller volumespiked 68 percent to 49 million calls in 2006 compared with 2004, thestudy found.  The Office of Inspector General,which audits and investigates the agency, recommended reviewing theinteractive voice response system to determine if more staff should behired to man the phone lines.  Callers were more likely to hang upin frustration than in 2004, the survey said. About 21 percent ofcallers hung up before getting an answer in the survey, up from 12percent in 2004, the report found.

Source/more:  Reuters Health, http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2007/09/28/eline/links/20070928elin018.html