Additional information about the CMS Beneficiary Contact Service
CMS will not release the Name & Address File directly to the researcher. CMS now requires researchers to work with a Beneficiary Contact Service in order to contact beneficiaries. Researchers can work with the Beneficiary Contact Service to define their sample.
The designated CMS Beneficiary Contact Service is located within the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. The Beneficiary Contact Service is the intermediary between the researcher and the Medicare beneficiary. The researcher will hire the Beneficiary Contact Service to determine whether the beneficiary is interested in being contacted by the researcher for possible participation in the study. In other words, the researcher will be responsible for entering into a contract with the Beneficiary Contact Service to contact the Medicare beneficiary. The Beneficiary Contact Service will mail the following information to each beneficiary in the selected sample: CMS beneficiary notification letter, response letter indicating beneficiary interest in being contacted about the study, a pre-paid envelope for their reply, and (if provided by the researcher) a brochure about the study. The Beneficiary Contact Service will also provide a toll free number for beneficiaries and answer general questions about the project. The beneficiary notification letter is a CMS standard letter and is available in English and Spanish.
Three weeks after the Beneficiary Notification Letter is mailed, the Beneficiary Contact Service will provide to the researcher a Name and Address file of all beneficiaries who can be contacted by the researcher. Additionally, a final disposition report on the entire mailed sample will also be provided for the purpose of determining response bias. Reports will be provided on a CD and sent FedEx to the researcher. Payment must be received before the reports are released. Note, there is an additional fee payable to CMS for the cost of extracting the Name & Address File from the CMS data system.
For additional information about using the Medicare Name & Address information for the purpose of contacting Medicare beneficiaries for enrollment in a study, including the CMS costs for the data file as well as the costs for the Beneficiary Contact Service, contact ResDAC staff.
Last Modified April 24, 2009