Medicare Network Conference Call
June 18, 2003
Medicare Mental Health Care and Coverage
Final Announcement
The Medicare Network monthly conference call will take place on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 at 3:00 P.M. EDT.
Call Agenda
The topic of this conference call will be mental health care and coverage for Medicare beneficiaries. Our presenters have prepared a power point slide show to accompany their discussion of this topic. You may wish to follow the slide show during the conference call. Please click here for the slides.
We will also provide you with the latest developments on the Medicare bill that is working its way through Congress.
During the conference call, we will:
Explore the issues SHIP deal with as they counsel, educate and assist Medicare beneficiaries seeking care and coverage for mental health and behavioral health services.
Consider the issues raised by the kinds of care needed by beneficiaries with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.
Discuss Medicare reimbursement rules and Medigap payment rules for mental and behavioral health care.
Review the perplexing topic of coordination of Medicare with Medicaid entitlement or private insurance.
Guest Presenters
Our guest presenters/facilitators on mental health care and coverage for Medicare beneficiaries are Leslie Fried, associate staff director of the ABA Commission on Law and Aging. Leslie is the attorney for the Medicare Advocacy Project, a collaborative project with the Alzheimer's Association. She specializes in Medicare issues and responds to Alzheimer's-related Medicare inquiries from local Alzheimer's Association chapters, and Kim Glaun, Washington Counsel at the Medicare Rights Center. Kim recently co-authored an Issue Brief entitled Medicare Mental Health Coverage for the Center for Medicare Education.
Background Materials
For background information on this call, please see Medicare Mental Health Coverage, (Vol. 4, # 2, 2003) published by the Center for Medicare Education. You can obtain this Center for Medicare Education Issue Brief by clicking here, http://www.medicareed.org/content/CMEPubDocs/ACF525D.pdf or visit the website of the Center for Medicare Education, at http://www.medicareed.org/
CMS has issued several recent bulletins related to mental health coverage and Medigap insurance. One addresses the obligations of a Medigap insurer regarding Medicare mental health coinsurance amounts . It is called "Medigap Coverage of Outpatient Mental Health Services That Are Subject to the Mental Health Payment Reduction--Bulletin 02-02" and is available by clicking here http://www.cms.hhs.gov/medigap/mdgp0202.pdf The other is entitled "Timing of the Six-Month Medigap Open Enrollment Period, and Clarification of the Open Enrollment Rights of Disabled and End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Medicare Beneficiaries When They Attain Age 65--Bulletin 02-03" Click here to view it. http://www.cms.hhs.gov/medigap/mdgp0203.pdf
Additional resources, including an issue of the Center for Medicare Advocacy's Healthcare Rights Review, will be discussed during the call.
Please contact Hilary at hdalin@healthassistancepartnership.org or call 202 737 6340, for further information or if you have any questions about the June 18, 2003 conference call.
