Medicare ‘Social HMO’ Volunteer Program Provides Extended Medicare Benefits to Homebound Seniors

To help "keep the frail elderly independent," Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Elderplan, one of the nation's four social Medicare HMOs, provides seniors with a range of Medicare benefits beyond what are standard for beneficiaries, including Member to Member -- a volunteer network of New York City seniors who "fan out over the city fixing things, doing shopping and just reminiscing with other older people," the New York Times reports. About 5,000 "homebound" New York seniors have "tapped into" the volunteer network, a program designed to offer healthy seniors "a way to stay active and to help those who may not be as agile take better care of themselves and continue to live on their own" (Christian, New York Times, 4/30). A long-running experiment by Medicare, the four social HMOs were created in 1985 to keep seniors our of nursing homes by offering extra lifestyle services (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 10/24/00). According to Eli Feldman, president and CEO of Elderplan, an agency of the not-for-profit Metropolitan Jewish Health System, "If we can keep the at-risk elderly functioning and active, we can focus on their medical problems and delay institutionalization on average by about two years. You don't have to lose your independence just because you get older." In addition to volunteers who perform household tasks, the Member to Member program includes dozens of telephone volunteers who spend about four hours per day "chatting with other elderly widows about their 'aches and pains' and their lives" and providing "telephone courses," where members play bingo, exercise, discuss current events, share restaurant reviews and tour the world over the phone. For their time, volunteers earn Elderplan "service dollars" -- points that they can "cas[h] in toward health-related prizes" or "bank" for a ride to the doctor or a hot meal cooked and delivered (New York Times, 4/30). For more information on how the program works, go to http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/t960418a.html. For information relevant to Medicare beneficiaries, go to http://www.medicare.gov.