FREE SERVICE OFFERS SENIORS HELP

After battling with an insurance company and Medicaid, Elmer Cook couldn't get his financial problems solved, so he turned to the APPLE Project for help.

"You'd sort of say APPLE was my last hope," he said. Cook, a 73-year-old Benton resident lost his group insurance when he and his wife divorced in 1993. But Medicare wouldn't accept his claims for medical expenses because the agency said he was already covered by a plan.

APPLE is a paperwork service that helps the elderly with filling out forms for everything from assistance programs to insurance claims.

A variety of people use the service, said Wanda Wyatt, director. "The idea is to help the senior adult remain independent," she said. "They still have keen minds, but paperwork can be confusing to even the most educated."

APPLE, an acronym for Applications, Personal Papers, Legal and Environmental, is a grant-funded program administered through the department of human environmental sciences at Southeast Missouri State University.

"We fill a gap of services available to senior adults," Wyatt said.

And many clients would agree.

"If I had anything else come up, I'd go back to them," Cook said. It took nearly a year to straighten out his dilemma. But when it was all over, he received a refund from Medicare because he had overpaid.

"I had everything in order because it was important to me," he said. "I pay for Medicare and I want to get something out of it."

Other clients have gone to APPLE with problems similar to Cook's. The program actually began when a senior couple needed help deciphering their insurance claims after both were hospitalized. It serves about 400 clients each month in Cape Girardeau, Bollinger, Scott and Perry counties. The service is free to anyone 60 or older.

As part of its service, APPLE has many repeat clients who need help paying regular bills or are homebound.

One man needed APPLE's help after his wife went into a nursing center. He had always assumed she'd be the surviving spouse, so he taught her how to maintain the house and yard. He never really expected to be left with all the bills and paperwork, Wyatt said.

"He was left not knowing how to do any of the paperwork," she said. "He'd been teaching her how to take care of the house and how to be independent all these years, and then needed help with insurance and Medicare when she went into a nursing center."

For more information about APPLE, call 651-5467.