| Volunteers Continue To Be Essential For SHIIP’s Operation |
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Did you know that North Carolina has more than 1.5 million Medicare beneficiaries? And all those beneficiaries are served by more than 850 volunteers and coordinators from the Seniors’ Health Insurance Information Program. That amounts to almost 1,800 beneficiaries for every volunteer.
Housed within the North Carolina Department of Insurance, SHIIP was established in 1986 to help educate Medicare beneficiaries and their caregivers about Medicare, Medicare supplements, long-term care insurance, Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D prescription drug plans and other health insurance options for people with Medicare.
In addition to the program’s professionally-operated call center, SHIIP has a volunteer base of 124 county coordinators and 753 volunteers assisting Medicare beneficiaries in all 100 counties of North Carolina. Volunteers for SHIIP must successfully complete a computerized training course to become certified to better help people with Medicare. They are required to attend quarterly follow-up trainings, and they must provide 40 hours of counseling services annually to maintain their certification. Without it’s remarkable and dedicated volunteers, SHIIP could not reach out to all the people using Medicare in our state.
SHIIP volunteers are required to submit reports on each client they assist, and records show they have helped nearly 100,700 Medicare beneficiaries in one-on-one counseling sessions during the past year. This is an outstanding accomplishment.
SHIIP staff is very grateful for the volunteers’ hard work, and we can never thank them enough for all that they do to assist people with Medicare. April’s National Volunteer Week is a great time to publicly thank all the SHIIP volunteers in North Carolina for the remarkable service they provide.
SHIIP is always looking for new volunteers. Would you like to give back to your community? Do you have computer skills? Are you a people person? Do you have the ability to easily explain things to others? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you may be a great addition to the SHIIP family of volunteers. To learn more about becoming a SHIIP volunteer, call our office today at 1-800-443-9354, or contact the SHIIP coordinating site in your county. Let us educate you about Medicare so you can help the citizens of this great state. It’s time for you to become part of the SHIIP team!
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