LEGAL ASSISTANCE TO MEDICARE PATIENTS CLOSES:
MEDICARE CASES TO BE REFERRED TO
CENTER FOR MEDICARE ADVOCACY

After 24 years of serving elderly and disabled Medicare beneficiaries the Legal Assistance to Medicare Patients unit of Connecticut Legal Services, Inc. will be closing. As of June 1, 2001, most callers to Connecticut Legal Services who have Medicare-related problems will be referred to the Center for Medicare Advocacy. The CLS Elder Law unit will continue to provide limited Medicare representation in situations where CLS is representing a client based on another area of law and the client also has a Medicare issue.

Connecticut Legal Services will use the resources formerly devoted to Medicare work to establish a new program addressing Elder Consumer Rights. Connecticut Legal Services' Elder Law unit will also continue its other services to the elderly, including Medicaid and other public benefits assistance, enforcement of nursing home rights, enforcement of elders' housing rights, and the maintenance of the www.CTElderlaw.org web site and the Elder Law e-mailed newsletter.

For more information from LAMP contact Attorney Cheryl Diane Feuerman at (800)413-7796. The Center for Medicare Advocacy and the Center=s executive director, Judith Stein, can be reached at (800)262-4414 or (860)456-7790.