Every day, older adults and people with disabilities call the Medicare Rights Center’s national Consumer Helpline because they desperately need help navigating Medicare to access the affordable health care they need.

Thanks to our generous donors, our highly trained helpline counselors stand ready to take their calls and provide immediate assistance to people with Medicare, their families and caregivers, and the professionals who assist them. Last year alone, Medicare Rights answered 17,000 of their questions. And the phones keep ringing!

The Medicare Rights Center is in its second year of providing a range of Medicare resources to the 54 State Health Insurance Assistance Programs (SHIPs) across the country.

Working with the Northeast Iowa Area Agency on Aging (NEI3A), which was awarded a grant from the Administration for Community Living (ACL) in 2014, Medicare Rights today offers Medicare training and certification to SHIP counselors through the National SHIP Technical Assistance Center (SHIP TA Center).

This month, the Health Care Payment Learning & Action Network formally acknowledged the Medicare Rights Center as a Committed Partner. Medicare Rights supports the goal of linking 50 percent of U.S. health care payments to quality and value through alternative payment models by 2018. Medicare Rights directly answers nearly 17,000 Medicare questions each year on its free, multilingual helpline, and as a Committed Partner Medicare Rights will provide counseling to ensure that its clients — beneficiaries, caregivers, and professionals — are educated about Medicare-related alternative payment models.

Peter Bach, MD, MAPP, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, was the guest speaker on “The Future of Drug Pricing” at the Medicare Rights Center’s Policy Breakfast on April 5.

Dr. Bach, a physician, epidemiologist, researcher, and healthcare policy expert whose work focuses on the cost and value of anticancer drugs, is an ardent supporter of value-based pricing for prescription drugs and favors the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) recently announced proposal to test value-based payment strategies for medications covered under Medicare Part B.

The Medicare Rights Center’s unique blend of direct service and policy advocacy work is spotlighted in a recent report by Mathematica Policy Research, which describes and assesses the Consumer Voices for Coverage (CVC) initiative. Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and co-led by Community Catalyst, CVC’s overarching goal at its inception in 2007 was to build strong consumer health advocacy networks that would advocate for increased levels of health insurance coverage in states and nationally. With the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, CVC changed its focus to support state and local efforts to inform eligible individuals about new insurance options.

Like an intricate dance, the various organs and systems in our body are carefully choreographed to work in harmony to perform vital services. Throughout the year, health care organizations like to promote public awareness through special observances, and on March 10 we observe World Kidney Day.

This video features two of our most inspiring and resilient helpline clients, Rose and Barrie.

Their stories are quite different. Yet in watching each of them in their daily lives, it’s clear that—when given the right support and resources—they both contribute immeasurable value to their families and communities. As Rose describes, having her independence back “makes me feel good. To be able to do for other people, that’s my goal in life.”

Access to health care isn’t just something that’s nice to have; for Rose and Barrie, it literally made all the difference in their worlds. The same is true for so many of our helpline callers.