Financial and healthcare decision making ability is measured using a modified 12-item version of the Decision-Making Competence Assessment Tool by Finucane, which was specifically designed to measure decision making in older adults.

Participants are presented with a healthcare module that provides information about health maintenance organization (HMO) plans and a financial module that includes financial information about mutual funds. The information presented in the modules is designed to simulate materials used in financial and healthcare settings in the real world.

Participants are asked 6 questions of varying difficulty level (3 simple and 3 complex) for each sub-scale that assess comprehension and integration of the information in the modules. The total decision making score ranges from 0 to 12 and represents the number of items answered correctly. If 6 or more questions are missing, then the score cannot be calculated. The sub-scale scores for health and financial decision making range from 0 to 6.

Participants are asked the following questions for the financial module:

1. What is the account management fee for this fund?
2. What is the gross annual return on the minimum investment?
3. Suppose you want a mutual fund that has a management fee of less than 1% AND a gross annual return of over 6.5%. Based on the information in this table, which fund should you choose?
4. What is the lowest available account management fee?
5. Which mutual fund provides the best net rate of return, after subtracting management fees?
6. Look at this table and suppose you have $2,000 to invest. You want a mutual fund that has a management fee of less than 1.5%, one that has been active for at least 5 years, and one that has a gross annual return of at least 6.0%. Based on the information in this table, which fund should you choose?

Participants are asked the following questions for the healthcare module.

7. Look at the information provided and tell me, what percentage of members are very satisfied with physician access?
8. Now, in one year, what will this HMO's monthly premium be?
9. Suppose you don't want any HMO that is below average on member satisfaction OR below average on access to specialists. Based on the information in this table, which HMO should you choose?
10. What is the lowest copayment for a visit with a primary care doctor?
11. And which HMO provides the best overall treatment quality according to members' ratings?
12. Based on the information in this table, which HMO should you choose?

Note: In previous research, the decision-making measure has been shown to have adequate psychometric properties including high inter-rater reliability and short-term temporal stability.