Geographic Area Variations in the Medicare Health Plan Era

Background: Prior research identified variations in care experiences across Medicare health plans (Medicare Advantage [MA]), but the relative amount of variation in MA and traditional fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare is unknown. Objectives: Compare variation and correlations of beneficiary reports of care experiences across geographic areas in MA and FFS. Methods: Using the 2001 to 2004 Medicare CAHPS surveys, we analyzed 14 measures of care...