Background

The state of Medicare is one of the country’s most contentious issues. The Center for Medicare Advocacy (CMA) is a nonprofit organization that provides education, advocacy, and legal assistance to help elders and people with disabilities obtain necessary healthcare. The Center for Medicare Advocacy sought our advice for the development of an effective communications strategy and our help inserting CMA’s voice into discussions about Medicare, especially during the push to promote the new prescription drug benefit known as Part D.

Approach

In order to develop a communications strategy for CMA, Douglas Gould and Company conducted a communications audit to review CMA’s opportunities and challenges and to determine the optimum deployment of resources, including staff, to maximize organization performance. Our services also included hands-on media training skills to improve the media interviewing and presentation skills of the attending staff.
Douglas Gould and Company also designed and implemented a special interactive site called Fair Medicare (www.fairmedicare.org) to help CMA educate beneficiaries and their caregivers, while giving them the tools they need to advocate for fair Medicare. The site helps clear up confusion around the new Medicare prescription drug benefit with helpful resources such as the Medicare D-Coder. The site features an online advocacy center, news, and “Medicare Minutes” —a monthly podcast series featuring important information about changes in Medicare. A secondary purpose of the site was to enable the organization to cultivate relationships with supporters, so the site allows users to sign up for e-mail updates, share stories, and make donations online.

Results

In the Winter of 2005 www.fairmedicare.org won the World Wide Web Health Merit Award. The program recognizes the best health-related Web sites for consumers and professionals and judges the sites based on accuracy, success in reaching the targeted audience and overall quality.

Douglas Gould and Company has inserted the voice of CMA’s executive director, Judith Stein and other Center for Medicare Advocacy staff members into the recent and continuing media coverage of Medicare funding and related issues.

As a result of our efforts, Judith Stein and other CMA staff have been quoted in publications such as The Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, Orlando Sentinel, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hartford Courant, and Congress Daily. In addition, we have secured interviews on radio programs like Public Radio International’s "Marketplace", National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm Show and All Things Considered, as well as other syndicated programs like "A Touch of Grey."

Through this project, we have successfully raised awareness of Medicare advocacy efforts, and increased exposure for Judith Stein and the Center for Medicare Advocacy. The CMA executive director will continue to be a source for many reporters covering this hot-button issue in the months and years to come.

KETV.com, March 27, 2006, “ConsumerWatch: Some Warn Against Medicare Advantage Plans”

Boston Globe, March 26, 2006, “It’s Enough To Make Them Sick”

Newsday, March 25, 2006, “Left, Right and Center on the Web”

USA Today, March 20, 2006, “April Could Pose New Problems for Medicare Drug Benefit”

Newsday, March 16, 2006, “Ideas to Fix Part D Lack Real Push”