HMO Enrollment Data

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on health maintenance organization (HMO) enrollment, focusing on the number of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in risk-based HMO. GAO noted that: (1) between December 1993 and 1994, the percentage of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in risk-based HMO increased from 5.1 to 6.3 percent for a total of about 2.3 million beneficiaries; (2) although older beneficiaries had lower enrollment rates than the general Medicare population, they also increasingly joined risk-based HMO; (3) between 1993 and 1994, the percentage of Medicare beneficiaries aged 75 and older enrolled in risk-based HMOs increased from 4.8 to 6.1 percent; and (4) the percentage of beneficiaries aged 85 and older enrolled in risk-based HMO increased from 3.9 to 4.7 percent between 1993 and 1994.