Alabama SHIP Program: Innovative Medicare Education and Training

The Alabama SHIP recognized that before they could begin recruiting — and successfully retaining — volunteers to their SCREAM Team, they needed to strengthen their initial training program. The renewed training program emphasizes counseling skills as well as substantive knowledge. Under a Collaborative State Project (CSP), the Alabama SHIP and HAP developed a series of counseling tools to help empower and equip new counselors to become even more effective.

• Task-based Analyses: These step-by-step instructions (using Washington's task-based analysis on long-term care counseling as a model) help deconstruct the counselors' experience and make it easier for counselors to keep track of what to review and where to go next. The analyses also offer a program the opportunity to prepare new counselors for what to expect when counseling. HAP and the AL SHIP developed two analyses:
  • Counseling on Medicare Advantage 
  • Counseling on Part D
• Easy-to-Read Appeals Flowcharts: Need a handy, one-page visual reference that helps explain the appeals process to new and seasoned counselors? HAP in collaboration with the Alabama SHIP created just this tool, to help capture the stages of appeals in both Original Medicare and in the Part D appeals processes. The charts quickly review the main points: who to contact at each stage, length of time allotted for each stage, and if applicable, the maximum amount in controversy.
• Eligibility Screening Tool: Most local programs have developed a handy reference for counselors to use that helps them screen clients for eligibility into assistance programs, such as the Part D low-income subsidy (LIS) and Medicaid. Here's another such tool you can use to equip counselors during their counseling sessions when screening for program income and asset limits. Customize this eligibility chart with your state's requirements!
• Troubleshooting Directory: Wondering how to help empower your counselors on where to go and who to contact on any given client inquiry? Consider our Troubleshooting Directory — a handy compilation of common Medicare topics and their appropriate contacts, similar to a Numbers to Know you'd post on your refrigerator! This directory captures common counselor questions, such as secondary payer issues to Plan Finder problems, and offers a follow-up person or place to go to for help. SHIP programs can use this directory as a model and customize your own unique contact list to getting help in your area.