Check www.benefits.org for ideas about assistance
March 7, 2020
By: Doug Sheaffer
Email: sheafdf@dshs.wa.gov
Guess what? Last fall, I found that I was a year older than the previous year. Weird. I don’t recall feeling any different form the day before and the day after my birthday. Apparently, regardless of how I feel, I’m part of the “aging population”.
And so are you.
In many cases, it’s not so much the realization that we’ve made it through another year as it is how many years we’ve already lived.
And while many of us tend to think of services as something we may need sometime (usually when we get old—whatever that means) there are lots of benefits available to all of us. True, some do depend on hitting a certain age-related milestone such as 65 for Medicare or 65-67+ for Social Security, but there have always been other eligibility targets along the way.
Old enough to drive, old enough to vote, old enough to serve in the military and so on. Since we’re not growing younger, these stages tend to be in the future.
We meet with many people in our communities to talk about such issues—particularly in the Medicare arena. We, too, however have programs that can help that start at adulthood, 55, 60, etc. While we are more than willing to help explore options and opportunities, there are also online resources to review on your own.
One of the more comprehensive sites is www.benefits.org. The site provides a free overview of what might work for you—from Senior Employment, to Veterans assistance; from medication programs (including Medicare Part D and Patient Assistance Programs) to health care. And, you can check it all out anonymously or make your own profile. It even has an option to run the search as a Test Case. Or, you can do it for yourself, a relative, friend, whatever.
There will be questions like zip code and how many people are in your home, general income, etc. in order to define what’s in our area, but it does NOT require specific personal information.
(As an aside: If any site you’re exploring asks for account numbers or Medicare numbers, STOP.)
The site is updated regularly and probably has more information than you want initially, but more information is much better than not enough information. Might be a good place to begin a search.
This, of course, doesn’t preclude anyone from contacting us. We’re all in this together and we can all learn from each other.
Information & Assistance
Long Beach: 360 642 3634/888 571 6558 Raymond: 360 942 2177/888 571 6557