Over 500,000 people with Medicare saved $1.2 billion in past decade
Arlington, VA (Dec. 17, 2018) – Twenty-five new organizations have joined the National Council on Aging’s (NCOA) national network of Benefits Enrollment Centers (BECs), providing personalized assistance to low-income Medicare beneficiaries who want to access programs that help pay for health care, prescriptions, food, utilities, and more. The organizations will receive grants to create or expand coordinated, community-wide systems to enroll older adults and individuals with disabilities into benefits programs that stretch their monthly budgets. Several of the new BEC grantees will focus on reaching individuals who have historically been under-enrolled in benefits and may face unique challenges to accessing services. They will pilot innovative approaches, including:- Using promotoras (community health workers) to better reach Spanish-speaking Medicare beneficiaries;
- Bundling benefits application assistance with case management services offered to residents of senior public housing; and
- Integrating benefits enrollment into an intervention addressing the social and behavioral determinants of health to enable older adults to age in place.
- Alamo Area Council of Governments (San Antonio, TX)
- Blount County Community Action Agency (Maryville, TN)
- CAPI USA (Brooklyn Center, MN)
- Catholic Charities Hawaii (Honolulu, HI)
- Colorado Nonprofit Development Center dba Benefits in Action (Lakewood, CO)
- Community Health Clinics Inc., Terry Riley Health Services (Nampa, ID)
- Council on Aging for Southeastern Vermont dba Senior Solutions (Springfield, VT)
- East Valley Adults Resources, Inc. (Mesa, AZ)
- Erie Department of Senior Services (Buffalo, NY)
- Family Eldercare (Austin, TX)
- Howard Brown Health (Chicago, IL)
- Kenosha County Aging and Disability Resource Center (Kenosha, WI)
- Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee (Knoxville, TN)
- The Latino Health Insurance Program, Inc. (Framingham, MA)
- LTSC Community Development Corporation (Los Angeles, CA)
- Missouri Department of Insurance/CLAIM (Jefferson City, MO)
- National Church Residences (Columbus, OH)
- North Mississippi Rural Legal Services (Oxford, MS)
- Northwest Senior and Disability Services (Salem, OR)
- Northwest Side Housing (Chicago, IL)
- Rhode Island Division of Elderly Affairs (Cranston, RI)
- Senior Citizens Greater Dallas, Inc., dba The Senior Source (Dallas, TX)
- Senior Connections, The Capital Area Agency on Aging (Richmond, VA)
- Steuben County Office for the Aging (Bath, NY)
- United Way of Monmouth and Ocean Counties (Farmingdale, NJ)