There is a SHIP, Senior Health Insurance Program, office in every county or district. Medicare can give you the number if you call them, the drag is they are all manned by volunteers, so if there are no volunteers, or educated volunteers in the services they offer, you have nowhere to turn. I have never had a problem getting the answers I needed from 1 800 Medicare. I did need to file a protest against one provider that refused to bill Medicare as my secondary because they did not have the software necessary and it worked great. They now have the software, were fined and every person that had Medicare as a Secondary was paid back from the provider. Sad that there is no one in your area to help you. Lori
-----Original Message----- From: Akua [mailto:a...@artfarm.com] Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 7:43 PM To: tmic-list@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [TMIC] healthcare >Aren't there social service offices that are supposed to be well >versed on these services available to help people make these serious >decisions with Medicare plans, etc? Social services are inefficient and uninformed where I am. I have been sent-- by social services-- to organizations that don't exist, received information that is ten years out of date, or just wasted my time. Most of my bad treatment and nearly all of my disappointment is from social services. Every encounter has been energy draining. They raise my expectations, collect checks for allegedly servicing me and do nothing.....My latest horror was with the public nurse-- occupational therapy and physical therapy. OT gave me exercises ( say wha?) PT brought a salesman to my house to estimate the cost for fixing my wheelchair--- 100s of dollars I don't have. Now the PT person gets $140/hr.... in other words, they got paid and nothing, nothing in my life is changed and no need was addressed... and they consider my case closed. I am trying to start a paratransit service because none exists in my county. Think anyone would help me, nevermind offer the service with 20% of the county disabled?! I began to keep a list of who I talked to, so I could rattle off who I had talked to. It's an impressively sad list. I'm too often the educator and informer, vs. the one being helped.... and I'm the one paralyzed in the wheelchair. Perhaps in other parts of the world, but not here. Akua > It seems that each county office should have these available to >their population since it can be so complex. Here in California, >different private plans are available depending on the county >you live in, as well as the fees for them. It seems that my mother >in-law changes plans every few years. She's learned to be pretty >savvy about it, but it takes time to learn. > >Hugs, Barbara A > --
