Effective Communication to Improve Decision Making About Health Care Plans

The Washington University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Health Services Accessibility; Health Insurance; Health Literacy

Treatments: Behavioral: Plain Language; Behavioral: Plain Language + Visuals; Behavioral: Plain Language + Narratives

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT01986790

HS020309

Details and patient eligibility

About

The overall goal of the study is to better understand how communication strategies can help people make decisions about health insurance plans.

This study aims to:

• (Aim 1) Examine currently uninsured individuals' understanding of terminology and details of health insurance plans;
• (Aim 2) Apply three recommended strategies for communicating information about health insurance plans;
• (Aim 3) Test the effects of these strategies in a randomized experiment.

Full description

First, this study will examine people's understanding of health insurance plan terminology and details through qualitative interviews with 50 uninsured individuals. These responses will then lead to the development of three communication strategies to improve understanding of health insurance plans: 1) plain language, 2) plain language plus visual displays and 3) plain language plus narratives.

The strategies will the be pilot tested with 30 individuals to assess readability, clarity of language, and layout. The revised communication strategies will be tested with 280 individuals in a randomized experiment. Individuals will be randomly assigned to either a plain language condition alone, a plain language + visual displays condition, and a plain language + narrative condition.

Enrollment: 343 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 64 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Must be without health insurance currently
• Must have been without health insurance at some point in the past 12 months
• Must speak English

Exclusion criteria

• Currently has health insurance and has not had any lapses in coverage in the past 12 months
• Does not speak English

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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343 participants in 3 patient groups

Plain Language

Experimental group

Description:

This intervention group will receive a plain-language table describing the features and costs of health insurance plans, with definitions of health insurance terms incorporated into the table.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Plain Language

Plain Language + Visuals

Experimental group

Description:

This intervention group will receive the plain-language table plus visuals that focus on specific features of the plans. Participants will be able to view the information about each health insurance feature one feature at a time, in the order they prefer.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Plain Language + Visuals

Plain Language + Narratives

Experimental group

Description:

This intervention group will receive the plain language table plus narratives about how others might use and rate the insurance plans.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Plain Language + Narratives