About the Communications Resource Kit

The Kidney Medicare Drugs Awareness and Education Initiative was created to help people with kidney disease and the health care professionals who care for them understand the new Medicare benefit. To accomplish this, a comprehensive five-phase strategy has been created. This Communications Resource Kit contains specific resources that you can use during each phase to educate yourself, your colleagues and your patients become more informed about the changes. Every attempt has been made to make this Communications Resource Kit as comprehensive as possible. Additional resources will be developed during the different phases, and the new tools will be downloadable from this Web site. If you have questions, you can e-mail us at info@kidneydrugcoverage.org. Please put the word “question” in the subject line. A Communications Resource Kit folder or CD with copies of all of these materials is available upon request.

Phase 1: Awareness
Objective: Establish basic awareness of Medicare Part D

• Web site: www.kidneydrugcoverage.org has been created to provide timely, consistent, reliable, and up-to-date information about Medicare and Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage (Part D), specifically for kidney patients and the health care professionals involved in their care. Visitors should feel free to download and distribute any information contained on this site. Be sure to bookmark this site and check back often!

• Press Release: A press release announcing the creation of the initiative and summary of its goals. Suitable for sending to your board, your mailing list as well as for including in your newsletter and on your Web site (ie, Newsroom).

• Matte Article: A pre-packaged newsletter/newspaper story that has been written and laid out, including a photo, and is ready to be dropped into your newsletter or provided to your printer to drop in. Additional uses include photocopying the article and putting out in treatment facility waiting rooms, hanging up on bulletin boards or distributing to patients and family members.

• Comic Strip: A comic strip that lets the reader know that Medicare is changing. Available in both Spanish and English, it can be dropped into a newsletter or added to a Web site.

• Fact Sheet: Fact sheet with important information about the new Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Benefit.

•Family Focus Article: Copy of an article that will appear in Family Focus, Volume 14, No. 3, Summer 2005, published by the National Kidney Foundation (circulation 313,000).