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It's one of the biggest decisions they might make all year, affecting their wallets and their health care for the full year to come. They may have many options to choose from, depending on where they live.

But 60% of older adults spend less than an hour choosing their Medicare coverage during open enrollment, a new poll finds.

That includes 27% who said they didn't take any time to review their options, and 33% who reviewed them but spent less than an hour doing so, according to new findings from the National Poll on Healthy Aging based at the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.

In all, 80% stuck with their Medicare coverage from the previous year, the poll finds.

The U-M team gathered the data just after last year's Medicare open enrollment by surveying Medicare enrollees age 65 and older who were drawn from a nationally representative sample of older adults.

Of those who did take time to review what's available in their area, 25% said the most important source they consulted was one offered by Medicare itself, either the plan-finding tool on the Medicare website or the Medicare hotline.

Only 5% said their most important source was a free local counselor, such as one from the federally funded State Health Insurance Assistance Program that's available in every state and called SHIP for short.

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