South Dakota's State Health Insurance Assistance Program - South Dakota’s Department of Human Services’ (DHS) Division of Long Term Services and Supports (LTSS) as the State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) administrator will, over the course of this five-year project, expand upon its program of educating, counseling, and assisting the nearly 200,000 Medicare beneficiaries in South Dakota. South Dakota’s Senior Health Information and Insurance Education (SHIINE) is the home of SHIP in South Dakota combined with Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) and Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers (MIPPA) will target services for hard-to-reach populations while developing new partnerships, expanding volunteer programming, diversifying media outreach, and strengthening the strategic focus on contractual requirements. SHIINE will continue its work to bring the National SHIP’s strategic focus on Service Excellence, Capacity Building, Operational Excellence, and Innovation to South Dakota. SHIINE has become a trusted resource for the populations we serve throughout South Dakota, and will continue to do so by setting the following objectives: 1. Consistently and confidentially provide accurate, objective, and comprehensive information and assistance. 2. Promote the program through targeted awareness campaigns across multiple media outlets. 3. Recruit, train and retain a diverse, sufficient, and effective volunteer workforce at all levels. 4. Develop and strengthen the program structure and organization, including policies, processes, and procedures, to enable effective and efficient operations; and 5. Promote adaptable and sustainable processes and activities to position the SHIP and SHIINE for changes in the programmatic landscape. SHIINE’s anticipated outcomes are: Education of beneficiaries about Medicare. Contracted services that provide credible and objective information and assistance to beneficiaries, their families, and caregivers. Strengthened program structure by implementation and use of the Administration for Community Living’s Volunteer Risk and Program Management. Development and implementation of a strategic plan to continue to enhance services to low income, rural, minority and minority populations, especially those who are hard to reach, that are both accurate and culturally aware. Continued growth and development in our community partnerships. Strategic marketing strategies using multi-media platforms.
