I’m so confused about Medicare, prescription benefit cards, supplemental insurance, HMOs. Is there someone out there that will talk with me about it all without trying to sell me something?

Read on:

Jan Leisenring, a Johnson County resident, was in her last year working for Lee’s Summit (MO) North High School and knew she needed to begin planning for her retirement–specifically health insurance. Although still head-over-heels busy at work, she prepared for the planning process thoroughly and methodically:

Clipped all related newspaper and magazine articles on the subject and put in a box.

Collected all mail offers from insurance companies–also into the box.

Sent away for the Kansas Medicare Supplement Insurance Shopper’s Guide from the Kansas Department of Insurance.

Talked to her HR department at the school district, talked with friends.

Worked through the transfer of her mom’s (now 88) health coverage options when she moved to Kansas from New Mexico.

Soon after retirement, Jan set aside a whole day to sort the health care subject out and make important decisions. “I found myself deluged with information, much conflicting, all pretty confusing. At the end of that day, I realized that by myself I couldn’t make sense of it all–or make a decision,” she says. “But I had a telephone number for something called SHICK–a volunteer program offering one-on-one assistance,” she says. So she called 1-800-860-5260 and eventually was referred to Rudy Roth–also in Johnson County.

“Help!” she said–and Rudy was ready to do just that.

Back up 12 years. Rudy Roth was planning his own retirement and looking for a way to continue making a contribution to society building on his work experience. “I had been an office manager in a steel plant in K.C.K.,” he says. “In that capacity, I’d done bookwork, managed employee benefit packages, worked with insurance providers, done the corporate tax returns and more.” He read an ad looking for volunteers for a new program called Senior Health Insurance Counseling for Kansas (SHICK). It appeared to be just what he was looking for.

After an intensive week of training, Rudy began helping seniors and people with a disability make their way through the Medicare maze. Every year, he spends a day retraining. This year he attended a three-day session just to make sure his skills were sharp and up to date.

For five or six months each year he is also an AARP Tax Aide volunteer. He finds both satisfying. “For one thing,” he says, “I learn the parts of the law and new regulations I need to know for my self. It also lets me meet interesting new people–both clients and other volunteers. I can pretty much set my own schedule and work in areas that interest me most. Best of all I get the satisfaction of knowing I’ve really helped someone in need.

Put these two stories together, and you have a winning combination: A serious, well-read individual looking for answers; a skilled professional who has made knowing the health-care facts a second career.

“Answers? yes. Decisions? no,” says Rudy.

Jan agrees. “He helped me sort through and eliminate options that weren’t good for me,” she says. Finally, with his help, I narrowed my choices to two or three. ‘Tell me what to do, Rudy,’ I asked. He wouldn’t.

The decision is the client’s he says. My wife is going through this process right now–and I don’t even tell her what decision to make. The SHICK volunteer is there to help clear the confusion, to explain the rules, to give the pros and cons of various choices, but in the end, it’s an individual decision.

To learn more about the information available through a SHICK volunteer or to explore becoming a volunteer, call the state SHICK number: 1-800-860-5260, or look them up on the Web: www.agingkansas.org/SHICK.