Pharmaceutical industry gives $10 Million to drug benefit  PR Campaign

The National Council on the Aging and the Access to Benefits Coalition announced on Tuesday a $10 million education campaign — financed by the drug industry — to help seniors learn more about the Medicare drug coverage that begins Jan. 1.

The “My Medicare Matters” program features dozens of trained counselors who will travel in 37 vans to an anticipated 5,000 events in 27 states. Officials say the events are designed to help educate beneficiaries about the new benefit. The campaign will also donate 700 wireless laptop computers loaded with the software programs that the counselors will use to work with seniors, to help community-based organizations administer their own education and enrollment activities. And there’s also a Web site, www.MyMedicareMatters.org, where Medicare beneficiaries can evaluate whether or not they should enroll in the benefit and, if they are interested, how to get more information on enrollment.

Recent polls have shown that many Medicare beneficiaries say they still do not understand the benefit.

Pharmaceutical manufacturer AstraZeneca provided an initial grant of $10 million to fund the effort. Company officials urged other firms to contribute to the educational campaign. “If ever there was a logical time for a public-private partnership in support of educational outreach, it is now,” the company said in a statement.

Robert M. Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights Center, a consumer group and a member of the Access to Benefits Coalition (ABC), said that both the ABC and the National Council on the Aging (NCOA) must be careful to make sure that drug industry funding does not taint the information provided to Medicare beneficiaries.

“The problem is that virtually all insurance funded and drug company funded education programs are not education programs. They become promotional programs that serve, frequently, to mislead consumers. That’s always the danger,” Hayes said.

While Firman said all Medicare beneficiaries should examine the new drug benefit, he said he is most anxious to reach the millions of low-income beneficiaries who are eligible for assistance with their monthly premiums, co-payments and deductibles. Many beneficiaries, he said, will need one-on-one counseling to understand the benefit, but web-based tools will also be a critical element.

“This is a big job. The government can’t do this alone,” Firman said. “High-tech and high-touch is what’s needed to get this done.”

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mark B. McClellan said the NCOA-ABC campaign would be especially helpful at the community level. The two groups “are among the most important” in the agency’s outreach on the drug effort because they have “proven track records” in assisting beneficiaries, McClellan said.

Dee Mahan, deputy director of health policy for the consumers group Families USA, said the www.MyMedicareMatters.org Web site was “a lot easier to use and a lot more user friendly” than the “Prescription Drug Plan Finder” feature on the www.Medicare.gov site designed to help beneficiaries select a Medicare drug plan.

While Mahan said she had not done a thorough analysis of the “My Medicare Matters” Web site, she said it seems like the new site would help people who are really baffled by the CMS site because the new site is relatively free from jargon.