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Get Better Maine!

Our friends at the Maine Health Management Coalition have launched a new website aimed at helping you compare doctors and hospitals and access resources to help you and your loved ones with chronic conditions like diabetes, asthma and heart disease.
 
Check it out: www.getbetterME.org

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Did You Know?

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, 17 million Americans with Medicare have received free preventive services; 900,000 received 50 percent discount on prescription drugs!

 

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Save the Date!

As part of Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q), Maine Quality Counts and others are hosting a national Care About Your Care event in Bangor on Sept. 15th. 

 

The event will kick off with a health fair at 10am and feature a sattelite feed of Dr. Oz, location TBD.

 

Please click here for more information.

 

 This August edition of the Maine Campaign for Better Care e-update is chock full of news and upcoming events.  Please read on for opportunities to get more involved!

 

If you haven't already, we encourage you to sign your organization on or join us as an individual supporter of the Campaign.

News You Can Use

Medicare Cost-Saving or Cost-Shifting? Fuzzy Math Indeed.
Check out our latest blog post: 

 

Some members of Congress want to raise the eligibility age for Medicare to save money. Unfortunately, such a spending "cut" would only lead to shifting the cost of care to others, including employers, individuals and their families. According to a new Kaiser study, raising the Medicare age to 67, so adding on just 2 extra years to the time the average adult would wait to go on Medicare, would save the federal budget $5.7 billion but increase other health care spending by $11.4 billion! Talk about fuzzy math...

New Tools from CMS Help You Make Choices about Your Care

 

Try the new Medicare Quality Care Finder to find and compare health care providers like hospitals, nursing homes and specialists and an updated Hospital Compare site includes data about how well hospitals protect outpatients from surgical infections.
 

The National Campaign for Better Care is leading the Healthy Hospital Initiative, an effort to get hospitals to coordinate care and improve patient safety.  Doing so will save lives and reduce costs. 

We are also supporting the White House Partnership for Patients to urge hospitals to sign a pledge to improve the quality and coordination of care.  To date more than 4,500 partners, including 2,000 hospitals have signed the pledge including these Maine hospitals:
 
Will you join us and encourage your local hospitals and health care providers to sign too?

"Like" us on Facebook!
If you haven't already, please visit us on Facebook and share our page with your family and friends!  
Want to join the Campaign?
If you want to help us improve care and reduce costs in Maine, please contact Andrea Irwin, airwin@mainecahc.org, or call 622-7083. 
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Questions about health care or coverage?
Finding affordable health care can be difficult.  What are your choices?  What are your rights?  We can help. We are a non-profit information, assistance, and referral service.  We do not sell insurance.  All calls are confidential.
Health Care HelpLine: 1-800-965-7476 or jderrico@mainecahc.org