Seniors attending last week's Good Life Expo learned more about RSVP and one of it's many services, the Senior Medicare Patrol, or SMP. It's a watchdog group with a number of objectives.
"One of them is to protect - that's to protect our Medicaid and Medicare information to be aware of to whom we give this information and maybe even withhold it from time to time,” said Lorraine Tobin, Senior Medicare Patrol.
Tobin emphasizes that not all errors are due to scam artists. There can be legitimate mistakes - but to correct them, the seniors must communicate with health care providers.
“We encourage them to call the provider, the doctor, nursing agency or whatever and tell them what their concern is and maybe it can be corrected at that level as well."
The Senior Medicare Patrol is just one organization under the umbrella of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program.
“We recruit people 55 years and older or 55 years and better to volunteer because we feel that seniors are an unbelievable resource for us," said Ashley Muraoka of RSVP.
And RSVP capitalizes on that resource pool.
“We have 50 other organizations that they can volunteer at, many of which are in the public school system and they are tutors or mentors. We also have the opportunity to go into the homes of seniors to help with their every day lives."
While the seniors provide volunteer service throughout the community, Ashley is especially proud of their service in their OWN community.
“We like the concept of seniors helping seniors and that's exactly what SMP does - to let other seniors know about the fraud out there and what to be aware of so that's what we're trying to do."
