National Council on the Aging

Founded in 1950, the National Council on Aging (NCOA) is dedicated to improving the health and independence of older persons and increasing their continuing contributions to communities, society, and future generations. At the heart of NCOA is a national network of more than 14,000 organizations and leaders that work with them to achieve their mission.  NCOA’s members include senior centers, area agencies on aging, adult day service centers, faith-based service organizations, senior housing facilities, employment services, consumer groups and leaders from academia, business and labor.

NCOA is one of IANet’s first clients.  Our first assignment was to develop an internet based communication strategy and re-build NCOA’s website.  As new projects emerged, the work that we provided NCOA was so significant that IANet’s founders became full-time employees of NCOA for a period of time.

While at NCOA, IANet’s founders led the development of the Long-Term Cost Calculator, a project jointly sponsored by the National Institute on Aging/Small Business Innovation and Research and a grant from Lucent Technologies.  The Calculator is a decision support tool that asks a series of questions which are analyzed against actual Medicare Long-term Care costs to construct the most accurate estimates a person could have on their need for and costs of long-term care. The service then provided strategies on how to reduce those costs, such as the enrollment in public benefits.  Ultimately, this tool was licensed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to use on their website.

An outgrowth of this project was the BenefitsCheckUp Initiative.  This award-winning, decision support information tool helps older adults identify public or private benefits they are eligible to receive. The service is available to users across the country.  It includes benefit information on 1,300 programs for older adults, including prescription drug discounts.  IANet led the development of this Initiative until 2003.PC Magazine rated it among its top 100 internet sites. 
IANet has also collaborated with NCOA on developing other website projects and in writing articles on the benefits and design considerations for online health risk assessment tools.