My Medicare Matters(TM) Announces New Online Community

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- My Medicare Matters(TM) today announces an online community -- www.MyMedicareCommunity.org -- to provide user-friendly and reputable resources for professionals and volunteers who work with people with Medicare. This online community is launched just as benefits counselors all over the country gear up their efforts to assist many of the nation's 44 million Medicare beneficiaries with making decisions about their Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage (also called Medicare Part D), during the Annual Enrollment Period which begins November 15.

The content on www.MyMedicareCommunity.org is created and organized to focus on issues that are of utmost value to benefits counselors. MyMedicareCommunity.org responds to the critical need of benefits counselors for peer-to-peer discussion forums where they can "talk" with one another by posting their ideas, best practices, questions and answers about the challenges that they face everyday in helping people understand Medicare, especially prescription drug coverage. Counselors can access the resources, tools, and forums on the site, from around the country, at any time of the day or night.

"We are thrilled to provide a web-based tool that is user-friendly and specifically designed to help the advisors Medicare beneficiaries count on for help in making informed decisions about their prescription drug coverage options," said Wendy Zenker, executive director, My Medicare Matters and vice president of Mobilization, NCOA. "We are pleased to host this site and invite benefits counselors to come back to MyMedicareCommunity.org again and again for timely and useful information and the opportunity to 'talk' with each other about their important work during the annual enrollment period and beyond, because the web site is easy to use and contains the content that is most relevant to their daily work."

My Medicare Community offers a membership benefits package to those who participate in the Forums section, those who refer friends and colleagues, and those who use the resource tools often.

"The My Medicare Matters Community provides a one-stop shop where counselors can gather information and learn from each other's experiences as they work together to help seniors," said Fusun Sevgen, Director of Medicare and Strategy Outreach, AstraZeneca, the sponsor of My Medicare Matters. "We at AstraZeneca are dedicated to ensuring benefits counselors have all the tools they need as they help others."

It is important to recognize that MyMedicareCommunity.org is only for professionals and volunteers. A separate Web site, MyMedicareMatters.org is available for Medicare beneficiaries, their families, and others who want to learn more about Medicare and Part D coverage. A companion site, MiMedicareImporta.org contains the same information, fully translated into Spanish for consumers.

About My Medicare Matters

My Medicare Matters is an initiative sponsored by National Council on Aging, Access to Benefits Coalition and supported by AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP; its goal is to help people with Medicare and their families better understand the Medicare prescription drug coverage so that they can assess their personal situation, understand their choices, compare plan options and make decisions they believe are right for their health and financial situation.

About NCOA

Founded in 1950, the National Council on Aging's mission to improve the lives of older Americans. NCOA programs help older people remain healthy and independent, find jobs, increase access to benefits programs, and discover meaningful ways to continue contributing to society. A non-profit organization with a national network of more than 14,000 organizations and 3,200 members, NCOA is based in Washington, DC. For more information about NCOA, please visit www.NCOA.org.

About AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca is a major international healthcare business engaged in the research, development, manufacture and marketing of prescription pharmaceuticals and the supply of healthcare services. It is one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies with healthcare sales of $26.47 billion and leading positions in sales of gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, neuroscience, respiratory, oncology and infection products. AstraZeneca is listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (Global) as well as the FTSE4Good Index.

In the United States, AstraZeneca is a $12.44 billion healthcare business with more than 12,000 employees. For nearly three decades, AstraZeneca has offered drug assistance programs side by side with its medicines, and over the past five years, has provided over $3 billion in savings to more than 1 million patients throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. AstraZeneca has been named one of the "100 Best Companies for Working Mothers" by Working Mother magazine and is the only large pharmaceutical company named to FORTUNE magazine's 2007 list of "100 Best Companies to Work For." In 2006, for the fifth consecutive year, Science magazine named AstraZeneca a "Top Employer" on its ranking of the world's most respected biopharmaceutical employers.