Searching for health insurance options can be difficult, and Medicare is no exception. that State Health Insurance Support Program (SHIP) was created to help Medicare beneficiaries understand their scope in accordance with the 1990 Omnibus Budget Act, but it was not clear that the program was actually helpful.
SHIP is a federal program that provides the state to advise Medicare beneficiaries for coverage selection, qualifications and costs. It is supervised Administration for community life (ACL) provides subsidies in the weeks that are often distributed to local organizations providing services through paid and volunteer counselors.
ACL writes a public report that focuses on the contact indicators of the state level in the ship, but it does not include more detailed information. To date, we did not know whether the ship site was effectively located (ie, an area with high concentrations of Medicare) or provided equally to both low -income and high -income beneficiaries. This data will help you identify potential fulfillment of services. Medicare improvement of patients and providers.
New study
In the study published in US Management Medical JournalRatures at Boston University’s Public Health College have identified areas that can be beneficial for the expansion of ship services.
Using the 27 state directory (over 1,500 sites) and demographic conditions on the ship site, the authors investigated whether the ship site was unbalanced in the high -income community. The ship site is mapped Area as a postal code table (ZCTA) that allows geographic analysis of the postal code.
We compared four types of geographical areas to understand the characteristics of the area where ship counseling could be possible.
- ZCTA with ship service;
- ZCTA is located in county with no ship service but has ship service;
- ZCTA is located in a county without a ship service, but there is a ship service in adjacent county; and
- ZCTA is located in county without ship services and has no ship service in adjacent county.
Linear regression and T-tests were used to evaluate whether ship counseling was unbalanced in a community with higher income and/or less Medicare beneficiaries.
result
More than half of the ZCTA (63%) included had a medium site in ZCTA or surrounding counties, one quarter (24%) had a stomach in the adjacent county, and the remaining 13%did not have a ship in the adjacent county.
The authors also discovered that adults with unbalanced Medicare-Ages lived in areas without nearby ship sites. Even in areas without direct ship services, household income and education achievement were also low.
Access to ship services can be affected by volunteer counselors, service, education, and traffic options, not English. This is especially true for beneficiaries who are likely to be in rural areas and live in low -income areas with more languages other than English.
Only these results represent association Between the venue and the area in the location. Since ZCTA and county are varied, the ship site may be in the same county as an individual, but it still requires long driving to reach these services.
conclusion
This study suggests that there may be complaints in the place where the ship service is located and there may be potential needs for expanding services. Telephone consultations are always options, but direct access is important for double eligible individuals with complex health demands. It is important for those who need to be a caregiver or companion to understand the information that is limited or provided with hearing loss and English ability.
PEPREC is a team of health economists, public health researchers and policy analysts who support VA efforts to improve the lives of Veterans by using advanced quantum methods that are mostly funded by QUERI in the Veterans Health Bureau.
