Conducting a 'secret shopper' survey to understand consumers' experience in navigating provider networks

The Foundation's Network Design and Usability (NDU) initiative was designed to explore the impact of health plans' network designs and policies on consumers' ability to use their health coverage.This award supports a 'secret shopper' study examining the ease or difficulty that health plan enrollees experience when trying to secure appointments with their Marketplace plan's networked providers. The research team will undertake this work in collaboration with other projects to be funded under RWJF's NDU authorization. Project deliverables will include the study methodology; data collection and data analysis; at least two manuscripts summarizing this analysis and policy-relevant findings; and presentations to policymakers, advocates, and policy researchers.