Text Box: San Juan Island Senior Signal

Mullis Community Senior

Center
Text Box: Coordinator’s Corner Hey, all you Medicare participants! It is time to gather your current list of prescription medications and compare them to the new Medicare Part D plans for 2012. Enrolling by phone or internet before December 7 will assure your new plan is ready to use on January 1, 2012. While the formulary (drug list) for your prescription plan may change, the average premium remains $30 per month as it was last year. Some pharmacies are “preferred” by certain Part D plans and charge less than “non-preferred.” Folks unhappy with their Medicare Advantage plan have an additional period from January 1 to February 14 to dis-enroll. They may switch to Original Medicare and sign up for a prescription drug plan. For 2012 there will be a 50% discount on brand name drugs in the doughnut hole and 14% discount on generics due to the Health Care Affordability Act. Free one-on-one caregiver counseling remains available through a grant for unpaid, in-home caregivers. Call Curt for further details if you would like help to manage the many demands of caring for a loved one at home. Happy Holidays to everyone! Curt VanHyning

Volunteer Spotlight

 

Janet and her husband moved to San Juan Island last December to spend time with her mother and to improve the quality of their lives.  Until then and for the previous nine years they had been RV’ing.   Life on the road had its ups and downs and one of the downs is lack of community involvement and being a long way from friends and family. Their move to Friday Harbor has taken care of both issues.  Janet accompanies her mother to her many activities and she has become involved in the Red Cross, Senor Painters  and the Garden Club held at the MCSC.

 

Janet’s has a BA in anthropology from NYU and a BS in nursing from Alaska Methodist University.  She worked 16 years for Norwest Day Center for Adults in Seattle and as a visiting nurse on Orcas Island for 7 years and was a VISTA volunteer from 1970-71, on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. In 1967 she spent four months with the Frontier Nursing Service.

 

 Janet is finishing a novel which her father started and was unable to finish.  In her spare time, she enjoys beaded embroidery, jewelry making and drawing.  She states she is honored to be a new member of the Mullis Community Senior Center Advisory Committee.

Janet Dann

December, 2011