Training Information Intermediaries in New York

With support from The Commonwealth Fund, researchers at the School of Public Affairs, Baruch College, worked with the Medicare Rights Center in New York City to recruit and train staff and volunteers at over a dozen community-based agencies that work with people on Medicare. Baruch had recently developed, tested, and refined a unique set of educational materials for people on Medicare; these materials provide information on quality, cost and service coverage; background context for the data; and a worksheet to help people use the data.

Testing with potential users revealed that they would need personal assistance in order to use the materials effectively. In an effort to reach people on Medicare through trusted people at the moment they really need help, the researchers and the Medicare Rights Center sought out committed and experienced agencies that provide both health and social services to their clients. To provide them with the information they need to be useful to their clients, the Baruch researchers developed an eight-hour training program that usually takes place over three sessions. This program provided a multi-step counseling model for trainees to use to identify people’s needs and concerns, introduce them to materials in an incremental and non-threatening manner, and help them apply the information to their own circumstances.

The key content of the training was documented in a take-home Counseling Guide. This guide lays out the multi-step counseling process, identifies "trigger events" that might lead people to reconsider their health insurance needs and choices, and gives considerably more background on the data provided in the educational materials so that counselors can answer questions posed by their clients. In addition to the initial eight hours of training, agency staff also participated in at least one follow-up session where they could discuss their experiences working with the materials as they helped clients.

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