Coming into my summer fellowship with the Center, I already knew that the Medicare program was complex. After my summer began, however, I soon realized that there are considerably more moving parts to the Medicare program than I had imagined. Over the course of my ten weeks with the Center, I was fortunate enough to learn about many of those parts—including the Medicare Secondary Payer Program, Medicare Parts A through D, durable medical equipment, hospice, skilled nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, and reimbursement matters—as well as how they fit into the program.
Working as a fellow with the center, no two days were the same. I had the pleasure of attending briefings on the Hill, seminars hosted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the National Academy of Social Insurance, meetings with Hill staff, and hearings on the Hill—including a hearing where one of the Center’s attorneys provided testimony on an issue that I had been a great topic of discussion at the Center over the course of my summer.
My summer with the Center provided me with tons of hands-on and practical experience such as reviewing a notice of proposed rulemaking and analyzing how the proposed rule would impact beneficiaries, and preparing legal memos for the Center’s use as well as for use by other advocacy organizations. Understandably, at the end my ten weeks, I did not know Medicare like the back of my hand, but I am confident that the insight and skills that I gained over the course of my fellowship have provided me with the priceless ability to understand some of the most perplexing parts of one of the most complex social insurance programs in the world.