Pilot Testing the Shift from In-Person to Phone Data Collection on the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS)
Shena Patel
NORC at the University of Chicago
Samantha Rosner
NORC at the University of Chicago
Andrea Mayfield
NORC at the University of Chicago
Jennifer Vanicek
Survey Director, NORC at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
This paper summarizes the planning and implementation efforts needed to transition from in-person to telephone interviewing on the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS). The MCBS is a longitudinal survey of a nationally representative sample of the Medicare population, conducted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) through a contract with NORC at the University of Chicago (NORC). The MCBS collects detailed data from Medicare beneficiaries and proxies living in the community and from facility staff on behalf of beneficiaries living in long-term care facilities. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials issued guidance limiting in-person interactions, first in long-term care facilities in early March 2020 and then for people living in community settings in mid-March. In response, CMS and NORC paused in-person data collection, the MCBS' primary data collection mode for community and facility interviews, to ensure the health and safety of respondents and interviewers. To continue collecting data while adhering to in-person visit restrictions, NORC conducted fast-track pilot testing to study the shift to telephone-only data collection.