Minnesota Medicare Advocacy Project

The Minnesota Medicare Advocacy Project (MMAP) is a community outreach program which includes Senator Amy Klobuchar's office, a Twin Cities Home Health Agency, Minnesota State Representative Erin Murphy, RN,  and concerned home healthcare workers.  Pat Conway, RN, founder of the project, is a Medicare specialist who began eldercare advocacy efforts in May of 2008, as a volunteer for Health Care United. (Caregiver Profile).

The first goal of the project is to get Medicare to clarify and make transparent,  the action steps needed to get approval for,  and delivery of, the Medicare home health services benefits for which homebound beneficiaries with Alzheimer's disease or other dementias qualify.  Senator Klobuchar's office is working with Medicare.

Then we will work with State Represetative Erin Murphy, RN to improve compliance with State regulations (see Accountability) and form an alliance with a local home health agency to develop training programs for home health aides  and health care students to be qualified to provide Medicare-compliant home health services. 

And finally we have developed a Demonstration Project,  the Medicare Advocacy through Homecare Ministry Project, directed by Pat Conway, RN and Jerome Buchmeier, PhD. The project will bring together the HHA training program and the formation of a spiritually mature worker-owned service association that will empower Medicare-ready home health aides to develop their own client case loads. We have applied to the Alliance for a New Humanity for a Startfund Grant for this effort.