Just follow the instructions, dummy!
“Welcome to the Prescription Drug and Other Assistance Programs section of Medicare.gov. This section provides information on public and private programs that offer discounted or free medication, programs that provide help with other health care costs, and Medicare health plans that include prescription coverage. For more information on the Prescription Drug and Other Assistance Programs please visit www.Medicare.gov”
I didn’t want to be right this time. NPR broadcast a short story about the newly launched ‘Interim Prescription Drug benefit’ yesterday. In particular, the story focused on the increased customer service demands generated by this poorly organized stop-gap. My jaw dropped when Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep noted that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are launching a new portion of the medicare.gov website to address these new customer service needs. I couldn’t have asked for a better lead-in to today’s post. But believe me when I say that I honestly had hoped to surf my way to the Medicare.gov website and find a brilliantly simple, easy-to-use digital brochure which answers the most common questions, referring all others to a 1-800 number.
Well, that’s not what happened. First though, I need to repeat something I said a while ago about knowing your target audience: “Know your target audience!” My grandmother was responsible for two generations of computer geniuses and it took her a long time on AOL training wheels before she graduated to a real ISP. Occasionally I still need to show her how to add phone numbers to her cell phone. Don’t get me wrong, my grandmother is not stupid — in fact she’s very, very sharp. She can manage a 4 by 4 grid of bingo cards like nobody’s business and though my grandfather got most of the credit for being the livingroom Jeopardy champion I tend to think her averages were a little better.
Its a common misconception that people get stupid as they get older, while ironically it’s the young folk that are causing the problem. People don’t grow stupid, they just grow accustomed to thinking and doing things in a certain way. My Nana (and yours too, I’m certain) knows knobs, levers and switches. Telephones have 12 buttons and her hand is the mute. Her TV shows aren’t on-demand and her movies “aren’t cut off at the top and the bottom.”
You’d think that an organization like Medicare would know their audience. Never underestimate the government that brought us the IRS. What brain-boy thought that a website (of any quality) would be a good primary customer service solution for a product that services mainly individuals 65 and older? Not to get up on a political soap-box, but its not too surprising that the support system built for this ill-conceived band-aid is equally as inadequate. Rather than spend the time and money establishing a public healthcare system (or even subsidy) for those in need, our esteemed forked-tongue leaders have compounded the problem with a coverage plans that you can only change once a year, not to mention that the system expires in 2006! But that’s ok because for those in extreme financial need there’s a whopping $600 a year coming your way. File it right next to last years tax relief check. Sure sounds to me like the Bush Whitehouse has the best interests of America’s seniors in mind.
I could go on and on about how crazy it is that we’re the only major world power without federalized health care, but that’s for another time and place. What really gets me is this website. Check it out… Where do I go to see my new options? Where’s the list of endorsed providers? What number to I call to sign up? Why is ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ below the bottom half of the page? I’ve clicked around to many of the links, and found 10 different places instructing me ‘for more information go to www.medicare.gov’. I AM AT MEDICARE.GOV!
::Deep Breath::
Knowledge that this new plan is mostly a dog and pony show for the upcoming elections doesn’t nullify the fact that this website is just about as usable as a chainsaw with no handles.
