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Consumers & Professionals Resources Recent Developments Related Sites

Recent Developments Accomplishments Over the past three years, the Administration on Aging's initiative in this area have combined to: • Train more than 40,000 volunteers and professionals to serve as community resources and educators • These volunteers and professionals in turn conducted more than 25,000 community education events and one-on-one counseling sessions, directly educating more than 1 million beneficiaries • The projects also held more than 2,500 media events which reached more than an estimated 45 million people • During this same time period, more than 2,300 complaints were referred to providers, Medicare contractors, the Office of Inspector General, or other appropriate entities for follow-up More than $50 million in savings to Medicare, Medicaid, and other entities have been documented as being directly related to the efforts of the projects. Due to confidentiality issues and other factors, the Office of Inspector General reports that the most substantial savings which are expected to arise from AoA’s projects will be derived from a sentinel effect whereby fraud and error are reduced in light of Medicare beneficiaries’ scrutiny of their bills. Savings will also result from reports of fraud and error made to the Medicare contractors and to the OIG fraud hotline. It is not feasible, however, to track these effects entirely. Delivery of Consumer Information AoA provided consumer information to the public designed to: 1) Increase awareness and empower individuals to take greater personal responsibility for monitoring their own health care 2) Prevent the serious consequences associated with the small number of unscrupulous individuals who seek to exploit the Medicare and Medicaid programs through fraudulent or abusive practice 3) Provide advice and guidance on preventive techniques and methods that can help reduce victimization of older Americans. Examples of major product distributions during the past fiscal year include: • Consumer education videos • Health care journals The development, production, and dissemination of more than 2,500 consumer education videos and 65,000 volunteer recruitment brochures in English, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese. Another major activity was the distribution of more than 75,000 health care journals to Medicare/Medicaid beneficiaries, which AoA developed in partnership with doctors and other health care professionals, as well as the Senior Medicare Patrol Projects. The journal is used by beneficiaries to record such information as the date and purpose of their health care visits, medications prescribed, services received, instructions given, and other patient information. The journal helps to facilitate communication and understanding between health care providers and patients, and serves as a record for beneficiaries to use in reconciling their Medicare statements. This information ultimately helps them to better understand their legitimate health care financial obligations, as well as to recognize questionable health care charges. This increased understanding is, to a degree, evidenced in the growing number of consumer inquiries to health care providers and to the Senior Medicare Patrol Projects regarding the nature of the services received by beneficiaries. Delivery of Grant Funded Technical Assistance and Training Based on input from volunteers, health care professionals, federal, state, and local partners and other stakeholders, AoA has developed a number of technical assistance resources, including: • A compilation of best practice strategies, products, and recommendations • A limited access internet communication system for sharing information and answering questions among AoA's grantees and partners • A web page with training manuals, pamphlets, brochures, and other consumer information • Regional and national technical assistance conferences which bring together experts from the OIG, CMS, Medicare carriers, health care providers, senior volunteers and others to develop and institutionalize strategies for protecting the benefit integrity of Medicare and Medicaid Following the implementation of these technical assistance activities, AoA’s grantees report that during the last fiscal year they spent less time developing training manuals and informational brochures, testing various methods for recruiting and maintaining volunteers, and seeking to establish new partnerships. AoA’s grantees reported that they instead spent more time and energy during FY 2000 training new volunteers, disseminating consumer information and public service announcements, developing better quality cases and inquiries, and conducting outreach to hard-to-reach and vulnerable beneficiaries. Evidence of this increased productivity in FY 2000 as a result of AoA’s technical assistance efforts can be seen through the substantial increase in the number of beneficiaries educated, the more than 30 million individuals reached through media events, an increase by more than 500% in the number of cases reported by AoA’s grantees that resulted in some action being taken, and reports by grantees of their increased efforts to conduct outreach and education to rural, isolated, and non-English-speaking beneficiaries.

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		Last Updated: 9/9/2004	report issues regarding this page  return to top of page

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