NHCOA

The curriculum is designed to help SMPs reach Hispanic beneficiaries on Medicare fraud.

This curriculum provides guidance and background information to support Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) staff members as they reach out to Hispanic communities with education on Medicare fraud. The SMP program was created to empower and assist Medicare beneficiaries, their families, and caregivers to prevent, detect, and report health care fraud, errors, and abuses, especially among Hispanic older adults and other vulnerable communities with limited English proficiency and who lack information about the U.S. health system.

This curriculum is intended to supplement educational materials already available for Hispanic older adults, their families, and caregivers, since the SMP program has extensive nationwide involvement, outreach, and community education that have been adapted to the diversity and needs of the beneficiary groups across the country. Recent data demonstrated that the populations most vulnerable to fraud are those affected by poverty, low levels of formal education, who have little or no English skills, and who lack culturally and linguistically appropriate resources.

Hispanic older adults are more likely to experience social isolation and fear, to have poor language skills, and to have a sense of deference to authority, all of which make them easy targets for fraud against government programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid. Access to prevention programs that use culturally and linguistically appropriate tools and resources to educate and support seniors, their families, and caregivers is crucial to the reduction of costly errors and fraud attempts that cost millions of taxpayer dollars.

By the time you reach the end of this online curriculum, you’ll be equipped with some practical ways to reach Hispanic beneficiaries on how to prevent, detect, and report Medicare fraud. You'll learn –

through information and educational materials addressing critical topics, including building community relationships and engaging Spanish language media.

• Who are Hispanics and how to effectively reach them out
• How to work with Hispanic beneficiaries
• How to recruit, train, and work with Hispanic volunteers
• How to build local partnerships
• How to engage media outlets with Hispanic audiences
• How to apply all these concepts