b'| LEADERSHIP GUIDEEver-Changing Medicare Landscape Requires Continuous EducationHow healthcare professionals can stay atop a detailed and complex systemBY ROB SENIORA s time goes on, the healthcare system is changing more and more in the direction of patient-centered care. Its been a long time coming in the minds of most Americans, and it places the onus squarely upon the shoulders of healthcare directors and professionals to step up their game in terms of taking charge and increasing their knowledge base.Jay Johnson, director of Education and Outreach for the Medicare Rights Center located in New York City, has spent much of his adult life involved in continuing education and adult learning pro-grams. Over time, hes noticed that some courses or approaches are a little too focused on a single instructor or lecturer giving attendees a biography of sorts. In other words, they take the elements of a subject that are most interesting or most pertinent to themselves and build an entire continuing edu-cation course around that.Thats a problem, said Johnson, because adults dont learn particularly well that way.By contrast, Johnsons team has developed the Medicare Interactive Pro (or MI Pro for short) as a means of educating healthcare professionals on the ever-changing world of Medicare. Johnson said that they developed their course with the publics real-world source of access to Medicare as their guide.MI Pro is based upon the Medicare Interactive website and the Helpline, which is a simple lookup site used by over three million Americans (consumers, caregivers, medical professionals) each year, he explained. These are people looking for information and answersthey dont want to read a bunch of rules and regulations.The four-part course covers sections on Medicare Basics, Medicare Coverage Rules, Appeals and Penalties, and Other Insurance and Assistance Programs. In all, the course as a complete pack-age is worth 30 contact hours for each medical professional and is currently available through Elite Healthcare for only $250.We know whats confusing to people about Medicare, and we know they dont want it explained to them in complicated, jargon-y language, said Johnson. We can pinpoint just about every (troubling ISTOCK aspect) for both consumers and professionals because we run the National Medicare Helpline, where we answer 25,000 questions a year.www.elitecme.com |2020| LEADERSHIP GUIDE 5'