Biography

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Marisa Scala-Foley is associate director of the Access to Benefits Coalition at The National Council on the Aging. The Access to Benefits Coalition is a public/private partnership that has been formed to ensure that all low-income beneficiaries know about and can make optimal use of new Medicare prescription benefits and all available resources for saving money on prescription drugs. Prior to joining the coalition, Scala-Foley served as director of the Center for Medicare Education (CME) at the Institute for the Future of Aging Services in Washington, D.C.

Throughout her career, Scala-Foley has focused on issues related to developing accessible educational materials and infrastructure for health-care and long-term-care education (for consumers and professionals), consumer navigation of the U.S. health-care and long-term-care systems, and consumer direction in long-term care for older adults. She has also authored numerous publications in these areas, including Consumer-Directed Home Services: Issues and Models, one of the early studies of consumer direction in state programs for older adults; Navigating the Long-Term Care Maze: New Approaches to Information and Assistance in Three States, a case study of long-term care information and assistance models in three states; and Taking Charge: A Guide to Personal Care Decision-Making in Later Life, a consumer guide to long-term care in Ohio that was adopted by the Ohio Department of Aging.