Senior Reports

Welcome to this special part of the EILI Network designed for seniors. If you have something to send us that relates to senior healthcare, finance or senior contributions to the world please send it to us at info@eili.org.

About our authors:

Hal Prink, FHFMA, (hlprink@attbi.com) has worked in healthcare since 1966 in accounting/finance, healthcare education, consulting and patient advocacy. In late 1999 when he took early retirement from full time work, he moved back to the Denver area and decided to do some consulting and community work. He took to heart a speech given by Leland Kaiser, Healthcare Futurist, that you should give back to the community that which you have gained in your career. His community work led him to the nonprofit Patient Advocacy Coalition working as a consultant to seniors as a Medicare Patient Advocate in the Jefferson County area. In this work he helped seniors navigate the complexities of the Medicare program. He provided telephone counseling, face to face counseling and assistance in filing appeals on denied claims. To date he has assisted almost 500 seniors from issues ranging to finding a primary care physician who accepts new Medicare patients to dealing with complex denials of services. His appeals have resulted in recovery of over $200,000 for Medicare beneficiaries.

He has also identified some systemic issues with the Medicare program as follows:

1. Lack of primary care physicians accepting new Medicare patients. He has worked with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Colorado Division of Insurance to conduct studies on this issue and bring it to the attention of the Congressional delegations and leadership of the Medicare program.
2. Due to numerous calls to the PAC, he and a colleague identified a serious network adequacy problem with one of the Medicare HMO's in their Ophthalmology network. Working with the HMO, they got this problem resolved for the Jefferson and Douglas county areas.

In addition to this community service, he serves as Secretary-Treasurer of the nonprofit Patient Advocacy Coalition (PAC) and on the Board of the Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved (CCMU). Currently he is working as Secretary-Treasurer of the nonprofit PAC along with the PAC Board members to restore funding so the work this organization provided to the community can continue. This work not only involves helping seniors with the health insurance issues but also those with commercial health insurance plans.