The Sentinel, a publication of the SMP Resource Center
www.smpresource.org
August 2015
Alaska’s Long-distance Medicare
Counselors
To share your best practice, email
[email protected].
By Judith Bendersky, MPH
SMP Project Manager, Alaska
A
laska’s size is vast. Alaska covers
570,373 square miles of land
(compared to Iowa’s land area of 56,857
square miles, about 10 times as large). It
has 33,904 miles of coastline and is
almost completely surrounded by water
except where Canada borders on the
east and south. All in all, Alaska is onefifth the mass of the continental United
States. It has half the world’s glaciers
Judith Bendersky, aka “Medicare Mountain Momma,” takes
and eight huge mountain ranges
a break from hiking on the ridge past Rendezvous Peak,
including Denali National Park, with the Arctic Valley, AK, to discuss with a beneficiary how Medicare
works with AlaskaCare.
tallest peak in North America. If you
watch any of the reality TV shows (my
favorite is “Life Below Zero”) you know it is a huge, wild place with long, dark
winters.
Statewide, the Medicare population continually grows as more and more people
are aging and staying in Alaska. Tribal health groups are increasingly assertive
about ensuring that Indian Health Service beneficiaries have the insurance
coverage they are eligible for including the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicare,
Medicaid, or employee group health coverage. This has given us the opportunity to
partner with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. Our tribal volunteers carry
the SMP message in a culturally sensitive manner to elders.
Alaska’s SMP and SHIP are housed together in the Medicare Information Office,
which is in the Aging Unit (aka Senior and Disabilities Services). Located in the
Health Department, the SMP program has a coordinator of volunteers/Medicare
fraud educator who maximizes the important work of the SMP through a vast
network of trained volunteer in-kind agency counselors and liaisons working in
community health centers, tribal health facilities, disability advocacy organizations,
continued
centers for independent living, and senior centers. Our volunteers, liaisons, and
counselors, both native and non-native, live and work in remote islands along the
mighty Yukon River, in whale-hunting communities, clinical and public health
agencies, insurance and fraud education-related organizations, and five
subrecipient grantee agencies located in the largest “hubs” of the state: Anchorage,
Fairbanks, Juneau, Wasilla, and Kenai. (See map, below.)
As Alaskans live “off the grid,” so do our volunteers! When there’s a small
population of people living on a vast landmass, everyone wears many hats and
fulfills many roles. Our volunteers are people that are active in their communities,
churches, whaling teams, fishing crews, volunteer fire departments, etc. They are
people who are trusted in the community.
Nila Morgan, our key coordinator of volunteers/Medicare fraud educator, has
brought the Alaska SMP into alignment with national Volunteer Risk and Program
Management (VRPM) principles and processes. It’s exciting and challenging to
manage volunteers at such a distance. Distance technologies that we utilize on a
regular basis are:
• Skype
• FaceTime
• GovDelivery
• Webinars
• Teleconferences
• Videoconferences
continued
We utilize a statewide network of videoconferencing equipment available in all
communities with a library. The library may be a closet in a village school or the
equipment may be in a small, dedicated room in a large community library. We
provide Medicare 101 outreach each week to five of the more than 300 small, rural
communities in Alaska. We get to discuss Medicare with individuals that are
“getting ready” and can recruit volunteers using videoconferencing.
We conduct many webinars as well, utilizing GovDelivery as a way to send
authoritative information out to hundreds of Alaskans. We disseminate the
Medicare Minutes this way to beneficiaries and partners.
Medicare Minutes
People who can receive email or U.S. mail, read, and have at least a few
contacts in their community can be Medicare Minute volunteer presenters. Since
dozens of people call the Medicare Information Office each week with Medicare
issues, we have a ready pool of people with phones from which to recruit. We have
trained Medicare Minute volunteers by teleconference and webinar and send the
Minutes out by email and/or U.S. mail.
Many Alaskans living in remote places in the mountains or on rivers make a
point of taking care of “official business” when in Fairbanks or Anchorage.
Anchorage is the hub for the entire state. All of our mail, food, supplies, services,
and products come in through air or by sea, and most secondary or tertiary care is
provided in Anchorage as well. People on Medicare come in for health care
appointments and also will call the Medicare Information Office and/or Social
Security while here.
Challenges
Located in the Department of Health and Social Services, we are intricately
involved with the Medicaid Fraud Unit, which has prioritized catching Medicaid
waiver provider fraud and abuse. Medicare fraud is seldom reported due to a very
limited pool of providers who accept Medicare and patient reluctance to question
their provider’s billing practices for fear of losing their health care provider. 
This newsletter was supported in part by a grant (No. 90NP0003) from the Administration for Community Living (ACL), U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services (DHHS). Grantees carrying out projects under government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their findings and conclusions. Therefore, points of view or opinions do not necessarily represent official ACL or DHHS policy.