LIS

On January 31, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) released a report titled “Medicare Enrollees and the Part D Drug Benefit: Improving Financial Protection through the Low-Income Subsidy.” The report highlights findings from an analysis of Medicare data from 2020, including that the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) expanded financial assistance in Medicare’s Low-Income Subsidy (LIS) Program would have benefited nearly 461,000 Partial LIS enrollees had the provision been in effect in 2020. An additional 2.9 million Part D enrollees who were eligible but not enrolled in LIS would also have benefited from the program...

COVID-19 is a long-lasting and complex disaster situation involving a public health emergency and an economic crisis, with particularly acute impacts for older adults, people with disabilities, and others with certain health conditions. States are responding with changes in policies and procedures to ensure individuals have access to public benefit programs (e.g. Medicare Savings Programs, LIS/Extra Help, SNAP, and LIHEAP). ADvancing States has a new brief highlighting where states are with benefit access and enrollment since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results in the brief comes from the 2021 ADvancing States Membership Survey: COVID-19 Benefits Access and Enrollment, a follow-up to the 2020 survey.

This issue brief explores adjustments that states have made to processing eligibility and enrollment for benefits access, including changes to application and supporting document requirements. Examples of opportunities and adjustments that states have made to ensure older adults and persons with disabilities have access to critical benefit programs during the pandemic are highlighted. Data and findings are drawn from the ADvancing States 2020 COVID-19 Membership Survey.

These resources are intended to be used for education and outreach to raise awareness about the availability of Medicare benefits for low-income beneficiaries, namely the Medicare Savings Programs (MSPs) and the Medicare Part D Low-Income Subsidy (LIS/Extra Help) program. These outreach materials include posters to educate Medicare beneficiaries with disabilities about the low-income subsidies.

The purpose of this tip sheet is to provide promising practices to help agencies increase the number of Medicare Savings Program and Low Income Subsidy applications. This tip sheet features an ADRC in South Carolina that uses two different practices internally to ensure that all of their staff is aware of the income eligibility numbers for MSP and LIS programs.