Research issues: Dually eligible Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, challenges and opportunities

This overview describes the Medicare and Medicaid dually eligible beneficiaries, and it summarizes challenges in obtaining information and designing health care and supportive systems across the continuum of their needs. Some of the challenges include: the complexities of Medicaid eligibility, key structural differences between Medicare and Medicaid, long-standing data limitations, and determining appropriate payment mechanisms and amounts. The overview discusses and highlights changes that are expected to improve the potential for research on dual eligible issues.