Johnson County Community College wants to demystify the Medicare claims process.

This summer JCCC offered a Medicare course for health care providers.

“It was primarily for nurses and social workers,” said Penny Shaffer, program director for health and human services at JCCC. “It was amazing how many people wanted to hear about it.”

Shaffer said the course taught health care providers how to answer patients’ questions about Medicare coverage.

“Even health care people don’t understand it,” Shaffer said.

Nurses are not required to take courses on medical coding and Medicare, but often nurses are the ones patients turn to when they have questions about coverage, Shaffer said.

The Medicare course drew so much interest from students that Shaffer had to create a wait list for those who wanted to attend.

“It helped explain the process so they could help clients and patients,” Shaffer said. “We are going to do a class in the spring that is about how to go through the medical appeals process.”

The course about the appeals process will focus on Medicare appeals and is geared toward health care workers, seniors and caretakers.

Attorney Richelle Marting will be an instructor for the course. Marting works on medical appeals for Forbes Law Group.

“I really hope to give them education to understand why services are denied,” Marting said.

Medicare claims can be denied for a number of reasons. Sometimes the problem is as simple as a transposed number. Marting said the more people know what to look for when their Medicare claims are denied the more likely they are to get the denial overturned.

Marting said she focuses on Medicare in her practice because she sees a higher percentage of claims denied among Medicare patients than among those in the private insurance pool.

“The rules are just a lot more complicated with Medicare and the number of denials are increasing as Medicare tries to tighten down on its expenses,” Marting said. “A lot of the concepts we talk about in this class will be transferable to private insurance as well.”

Marting said she hopes to give people the tools they need to make it through the appeals process to receive coverage for their health care needs.

The three-hour appeal process course will be offered next March. The class costs $45 for health care providers who want to receive continuing education credits and $30 for the general public. For more information, visit catalog.jccc.edu.