The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on June 6 announced that an additional $15 million will be distributed to State Health Insurance Assistance Programs (SHIPs) to help people with Medicare get more information about their healthcare choices.
The $15 million is the second of three installments of SHIP funding in 2008 and will be distributed in June. CMS will distribute more than $50 million to the nation’s SHIPs in 2008; of that, $36 million was distributed on April 1 and an additional $1.5 million will be distributed in performance-based awards to SHIPs in September. This funding represents a $20 million increase in SHIP funding over FY07.
SHIPs are state-based programs that use community-based networks to provide Medicare beneficiaries with local, personalized assistance on a wide variety of Medicare and health insurance topics. CMS expects the SHIPs to use the increased 2008 funding to conduct community-based programs targeted at reaching more beneficiaries who are unable to access other sources of information such as the CMS online tools. Read the press release.
