The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) is a non-profit organization that assists individuals aged 50 years and older in augmenting the quality of life by assisting them in achieving financial freedom and in maintaining health (Bethell, 2007). The services of the AARP are available all around the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It currently serves approximately 38 million members in terms of health care provision and insurance services. The AARP is committed to providing guidance, information, advocacy, and service to its members for them to feel a positive social change as they grow older. The AARP Foundation is an associated charity institution that offers protection, security, and empowerment to the elderly through the assistance of its volunteers, donors, and sponsors.
The AARP follows its health care model that aims to improve the quality and efficiency of health care assistance, to increase the accessibility to health care services for various populations, to increase the price and quality transparency, and to ascertain accountability for all services received. To achieve these goals, the AARP has linked with Aetna and United Healthcare, which improves both benefits and the marketing of the health insurance industry. The AARP is thus a strong organization, mainly due to the size of its membership, hence any linkage with other insurance companies can be maintained and even strengthened more.
One policy of the AARP involves the improvement of the quality and efficiency of health care for its members (Barry and Basler, 2007). This policy feature is associated with routine measurement of the performance of its plans. It also encourages highly efficient health care options to its members, as well as the application of information technologies in keeping and maintaining patient health records. The use of prescribing medications electronically is also presented, which helps in keeping the patients safe from errors of drug consumption, as well as duplication of services, which are deemed to be wasteful in terms of money, time and effort. Such improvement may also advance the mode of access to health test results and other information.
Another policy being promoted by the AARP involves the availability of health care services to varied populations at reasonable prices. Such feature concentrates on outreach programs that provide materials and services to different communities using other languages that apply to specific ethnic groups. This element may be a valuable feature in interacting with its members, so that the patients may freely express their needs and concerns regarding health care and its associated services. It is also very useful in making its non-English speaking members understand what has been assessed or what is needed to help them in their health maintenance, including chronic care and disease management. The use of the multi-language approach also prevents miscommunications and misunderstandings between the AARP and its members. The benefits of such effort will include a greater chance for its members to understand any information that is provided to them, including the quality, effectiveness, and costs of the health care services. It also allows the members to make their own decisions about their health care plans because they are empowered to interact and ask questions about aspects that concern their health.
The AARP health policy also includes the regular monitoring and assessment of its health plan and its subsequent dissemination of information to its members (Gearon, 2006). Such a feature is valuable in terms of the AARP’s goal in continuously improving the health care performance and efficiency of its plans. And it is also known that the most reliable way of improving any health care plan is by gathering the comments and suggestions of the end-users, which are the members themselves, who directly apply such health care plans to their daily lives. The AARP has developed several instruments that facilitate their evaluation of their health care policy. The Health Plan Employer Data Information Set (HEDIS) allows the AARP to quantitatively describe the health care policy’s feature according to the rules and guidelines set by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. Another measurement tool is the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS), which is a standard test that determines the member’s evaluation of the policy plan. A third measurement tool is the eValue8, which is an analytical measurement test that is run by employers and other employer-based organizations to appraise the features of the healthcare plan.
The AARP appraises its healthcare policy and features every year and comparatively assesses the results of the last 7 years of performance. Such a comprehensive review of the policy oftentimes leads to points of improvement. These are then actively considered and incorporated into the working health policy and its members are likewise advised of the new changes. Any other comments or suggestions are freely expressed by its members, and the AARP at the same time welcomes such constructive criticisms. Using such a scenario for the implementation of its health policy, the AARP is a very strong and effective health care provider. The AARP is also unique in its target beneficiary of serving members of 50 years of age and older.
References
Barry P and Basler B (2007): Healing our system. AARP Bulletin. Web.
Bethell TN (2007): Keeping it afloat. AARP Bulletin. Web.
Gearon C (2006): State-by-State List of HMO report cards online. AARP Bulletin. Web.