PCHC and CMS: Educating Beneficiaries on Medicare Part D

The Partnership for Clear Health Communication has been working closely with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in recent months on increasing awareness and understanding around the new Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Benefit.

We are pleased to announce that in working closely with the Partnership, CMS has developed and released a co-branded brochure – currently entitled "Medicare Covers America," with future versions to be branded as "Medicare Rx" – designed to answer key questions about the new benefit. In addition to providing important dates for the Medicare Prescription Drug coverage and next steps for selecting a plan, the brochure answers the following three questions for consumers:

  • What does the Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage do for me?
  • How do I get this Prescription Drug Coverage?
  • How do I sign up?

Download the brochure:
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/medicarereform/DrugCovisavailEnglish.pdf
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/medicarereform/DrugCovisavailSpanish.pdf

While dissemination plans and printing quantities are still being finalized, CMS plans to work closely with the Partnership and its members to widely disseminate the "Medicare Covers America" brochure across the U.S. Additionally, the Partnership will continue to work closely with CMS as more outreach plans are developed in upcoming months.

Medicare Covers America Event
In recognition of their collaboration on the educational brochures, Partnership representatives were invited to attend the "Medicare Covers America" launch event on June 16th in Washington, D.C. President Bush, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Mike Leavitt and CMS Administrator Dr. Mark McClellan delivered remarks.

The national campaign will include partnering with state and local governments, community and faith-based groups, employers and unions, doctors, pharmacists, caregivers and other organizations that reach seniors with health information. The event encouraged seniors to sign up for Medicare’s new prescription drug coverage, with enrollment beginning November 15, 2005 and coverage beginning January 1, 2006. For more information about the campaign, call 1-800-MEDICARE or visit the Web site: www.medicare.gov.


President Bush takes the stage for the
"Medicare Covers America" event in
Washington, D.C. on June 16.



At its recent meeting, the Board of Directors for America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) adopted recommendations to improve health literacy as part of its work with the PCHC. The AHIP Board has asked staff to identify training needed by member companies to incorporate principles of clear health communication into company materials, and AHIP will work with the Partnership to identify resources for meeting these needs. Additionally, the Board endorsed the concepts behind the Partnership’s campaign that encourages patients to become active participants in their own health and elicit information needed to act appropriately on medical instructions and information.
Read the press release: http://www.ahip.org/content/
pressrelease.aspx?docid=11625

The Palm Beach County Medical Society held a summit event entitled "Hot Issues In Health Care: Patient Safety & the Ethics of Healthcare" in West Palm Beach, Florida, on May 6. The Summit was held in conjunction with the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County to address the understanding of bioethics and patient safety, explore opportunities to achieve a culture of safety and improve quality of care. The medical society plans to expand upon this program by distributing Ask Me 3 materials to about 1,400 local doctors' offices this summer.

The Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy (CAAL) recently published a discussion paper, To Reach the First Rung and Higher, on building healthcare career opportunities for lower-skilled, disadvantaged adults. The paper is currently posted on the CAAL web site at www.caalusa.org.

 


In each e-Newsletter, the Partnership for Clear Health Communication will highlight a health center, organization or individual taking action to promote clear health communication.

The American Medical Association Foundation (AMA Foundation) held a Train the Trainer program in Chicago on May 24-25, which taught attendees how to recognize and respond to patients who have a hard time reading or understanding medical information.

The program -- aimed at giving physicians the skills to recognize and respond to low health literacy in their practices -- is building a nationwide force of trainers, who will then pass these skills on to yet other trainers. In the long term, the model will exponentially increase the number of people exposed to the skills training.

Statistics from the program show that the train-the-trainer model is working: For example, a group of four master trainers initially educated 37 participants in 2003. Of these 37, nearly half have offered 190 local trainings to more than 5,200 participants. In turn, based on a mailed survey sample of 126 of these second-generation trainees, 35 percent have themselves offered local training, thus creating a group of third generation trainers.

"These types of training programs can have a more dramatic impact than the old traditional methods of simply disseminating information in the mail or at conferences. When you get a grassroots force in place that is committed to spreading the word about health literacy, things really take off," said Health Literacy Director Louella Hung of the AMA Foundation. To learn more visit www.amafoundation.org/go/healthliteracy or call 312-464-5357.

Literacy USA, Cleveland, Ohio, Aug. 4-5, 2005
Literacy USA consists of 65 coalitions in major metropolitan areas across the country dedicated to adult basic education, the GED, English as a second language (ESL) and family literacy programs. The organization represents over 4,400 literacy service providers that serve more than 2.7 million learners. Literacy USA’s summer conference program will address strategies, goals and resources to improve health literacy.
www.literacyusa.org

Health Care Education Institute 2005, St. Louis, Missouri, Sept. 15-17, 2005
The conference is for health care professionals who are involved in staff development, patient and community education, regulatory issues, training modalities, business issues, cultural diversity, personal skills and professional resources.
http://www.hcea-info.org/html/events.html

2005 PLAIN Conference, Washington, DC, Nov. 3-6, 2005. The conference will cover plain language approaches in health literacy education, financial documents, legal documents, public relations and Web sites.
http://www.plainlanguage
network.org/conferences/2005/

  • New Members: We are happy to report that the Partnership membership continues to grow each day – with over 250 partners to-date.

  • Ask Me 3: The Partnership has now distributed more than 700,000 posters, brochures and program implementation guides to hospitals and health centers, universities, adult literacy organizations, patient groups, employers and others nationwide.


Partnership Speakers' Bureau The PCHC Speakers' Bureau continues to share health literacy information in national and regional events across the country. To request a speaker, please contact the National Patient Safety Foundation at p4chc@npsf.org.