Celebrating Volunteers Who Help Medicare Participants Navigate a Complex System

As we celebrate National Volunteer Week, it is important to recognize how important volunteers are to providing programs and services that help older adults age well at home and in the community. Across the nation’s 622 Area Agencies on Aging alone, that’s at least 90,000 volunteers per year. The contribution is magnified when you include the millions of additional volunteers participating via other community groups and providers.  These volunteers provide critically important services:

o  More than 2 million people volunteer to provide home-delivered meals through programs such as Meals on Wheels or congregate nutrition programs at senior centers and other gathering places

o  More than 7,000 long-term care ombudsmen provide more than 708,000 hours of service annually to people in nursing homes to ensure their rights are protected and their needs are met

o  Almost 55,000 volunteer drivers provide nearly 5 million separate rides annually to help older adults get to the doctor, grocery, pharmacy or other places that allow them to remain living at home or in the community

Today, I want to focus my blog on the more than 10,000 State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) volunteers who help Medicare beneficiaries navigate their health insurance choices. SHIP volunteers are people in local communities who have volunteered to work directly with Medicare beneficiaries one-on-one.  These volunteers are highly trained in Medicare eligibility, benefits and options, health insurance counseling and related insurance products. They provide their counseling services free of charge (funded by the federal government and sometimes state funds) and are not affiliated with any insurance company.

The Medicare program has grown more and more complex over the years—with new payment systems and benefit designs. This Tuesday, I participated in a forum on Improving Care for High-Need, High-Cost Medicare Patients sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center. And while most of their policy recommendations would vastly improve care for these beneficiaries, they would add more complexity to a program that is already increasingly difficult to navigate. 

As 10,000 Americans become eligible for Medicare every day, the need for unbiased information is more important than ever. Unfortunately, the Trump Administration’s FY 2017 supplemental funding request, released on March 28, would eliminate $49 million from the $52 million SHIP program. As we move to a more value-based health care system, with an emphasis on consumer choice and decision making, we should make sure Medicare beneficiaries have the help they need to make informed choices about their Medicare benefits.

In addition to these important Medicare counseling services, volunteers provide countless other services to older adults, people with disabilities and their caregivers, such as respite care, and health and financial education. We hear over and over from volunteers that they get much more from volunteering than they believe they give in return. For profiles of some of these unsung heroes, visit our website, including a SHIP volunteer! They inspire me and I bet they’ll inspire you!