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Government
Agency must overhaul its counseling and
education efforts for people with Medicare,
Consumer Service Organization says
New York, NY – The Medicare Rights Center, a national
consumer service organization, called on the
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
(CMS) to make sweeping changes to its
counseling and consumer education programs.
“The current policy relies on an expensive and inadequate
toll-free service—1-800-Medicare—to meet the
demand for consumer advice that is fueled by
a needlessly complicated array of private
drug and health plan options,” said Paul
Precht, Director of Policy and
Communications.
“We have outlined key steps toward improving consumers’
experience with Medicare in a cost-effective
manner. The first step is a renewed
commitment by the incoming leadership at CMS
to putting the interests of people with
Medicare at the center of all its education
and counseling efforts.”
“People with Medicare need significantly more assistance
from the federal government in order to
receive the benefits to which they are
entitled,” said Dr. Bruce Vladeck, chairman
of the Medicare Rights Center Board of
Directors and former administrator of CMS
(then HCFA).
“It’s long past time for CMS to refocus on its primary
mission of serving consumers. Doing so will
be neither very hard nor terribly expensive;
CMS just has to decide that’s what it wants
to do.”
In a proposal submitted to Governor Kathleen Sebelius,
President Obama’s designee as Secretary of
Health and Human Services, the Medicare
Rights Center outlined how CMS’s counseling
and education programs currently work, and
why they do not meet the needs of consumers.
They recommended a new approach, which would
be guided by the following objectives:
Congress and the Administration must standardize Medicare
private health plans (also known as
“Medicare Advantage” plans) and drug plan
choices to allow people with Medicare to
make informed choices and eliminate wasteful
spending;
CMS must revise its organizational structure and create a
new office that is attuned to and
accountable for meeting the educational and
counseling needs of people with Medicare;
CMS must harness the experience and resources of community
and advocacy organizations, including State
Health Insurance Assistance Programs (SHIPs),
and better equip them to serve people with
Medicare; and
CMS must move toward greater use of dynamic, interactive
web-based education and counseling resources
and reduce dependence on the 1-800-Medicare
telephone hotline.
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