Aging Matters: Helpful Programs

One of my twins recently got a concussion playing football. We had several days of dark rooms, sunglasses and quiet time. One of his restrictions was no screen time, which is torture to a 15-year-old. We had to search to find other ways to entertain him. I busted out the colored pencils and let him be creative, and we played board games and did puzzles. It was great to have those reliable, non-electronic ways to keep him busy. This made me think about reliable programs that are available that seniors might be looking for.

CLAIM is Missouri’s official State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP). CLAIM offers free, unbiased counseling and education to Medicare beneficiaries. Several Aging Matters staff are CLAIM volunteers and receive training and education on Medicare, Medicaid and health insurance. Claim is always looking for volunteers to help, so if you are interested in learning about Medicare and helping others, please call CLAIM at 1 (800) 390-3330.

Missouri Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) helps Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries prevent, detect and report health care fraud. The SMP conducts outreach such as meetings, presentations and community events to educate seniors on how to protect their personal information, how to identify errors on their Medicare Summary Notices and how to report issues found. The SMP works with Medicare beneficiaries to address the problems, and if needed, can report the issues for investigation. SMP can be reached at (888) 515-6565.

If you have ever tried to find a pension from a company that changed names or ownership, you know what a difficult process that is. The South Central Pension Rights Project can assist anyone with a pension question or problem, regardless of age, income or value of the claim. This is a free service. Pension counselors assist with:

-Answering questions about complicated pension laws and how they affect retirement

-Obtaining and explaining hard-to-find retirement publications, forms and other documentation

-Correcting pension miscalculations

-Claiming retirement benefits that have been denied

-Tracking down benefits from past employers

South Central Pension Rights Project serves Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. If you have questions, you can contact them at www.southcentralpension.org or 1 (800) 443-2528.

Wolfner Library is a free library service for qualifying Missourians who are unable to use standard print reading materials due to a physical or visual disability. Wolfner Library offers a wide variety of services, including braille, large print, fiction and nonfiction audio books for all ages, more than 70 magazine subscriptions and loanable machines for those renting audio books.

Through this service, materials are mailed to and from library patrons free of charge. If you would like more information, you can visit the Wolfner Library website at sos.mo.gov/wolfner, or follow them on Facebook, at www.facebook.com/wolfnerlibrary. Or, you can call them at 1 (800) 392-2614.

Aging RX is a program we have at Aging Matters that can help pay up to $200 for prescriptions for those who are 60 years old or older and live in Cape Girardeau County. Please call Aging Matters for more information at 1 (800) 392-8771. Because Aging Matters.