With the advent of Medicare+Choice, beneficiaries are being asked to make more difficult and complex choices about their health care delivery and financing. These choices require that consumers have adequate information about their options and about the implications of their choices. While significant educational efforts have been initiated by HCFA and other organizations, such efforts are more complicated among diverse ethnic communities, which have different ways of understanding the Medicare program. With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Center for Medicare Education is designed to be a national resource for organizations and individuals providing consumer education about Medicare in order to help beneficiaries make critical health choices. One of the goals of the Center is to sponsor efforts to identify and develop innovative ways to educate special sub-populations within the diverse Medicare population including minorities and immigrants. As part of these efforts, one of the projects undertaken by the Center has been the establishment of a working group to develop culturally-appropriate Medicare education materials. This working group brings together representatives from national and local organizations representing different ethnic communities (African-American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Latino, and Native American) to develop materials appropriate for their respective communities. This presentation will describe the efforts of this working group. It will explore: the process used to develop these materials, the media utilized in these materials, the barriers faced by the different organizations and the lessons learned during this process.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to:
Keywords: Medicare, Health Education Strategies
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Center for Medicare Education
Medicare Rights Center
National Asian Pacific Center on Aging
National Association for the Hispanic Elderly
National Caucus and Center on Black Aged
National Indian Council on Aging
RAISES - The Spanish-S
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: Employment/grants