Medicare News

A Howard County, Md., resident has received an award for his work analyzing the use of prescription drugs by Medicare beneficiaries.

John Poisal, who lives in Ellicott City, was selected by Michael McMullan, Acting Deputy Administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), as employee of the month for March. A nine-year HCFA employee, Poisal works as a statistician for the agency that administers Medicare. Poisal is one of about 2,800 employees in the agency's Baltimore headquarters.

Poisal was honored for his outstanding work helping the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) study drug costs and trends for Medicare beneficiaries.

As a member of an HHS study team, Poisal prepared various analyses on prescription drug coverage, utilization and expenditures by Medicare beneficiaries to help inform HHS and other agencies within HHS on beneficiaries and their drug use. In one analysis, for example, he examined the impact of supplemental health insurance coverage for beneficiaries, prescription drug coverage, income and health status on prescription drug use.

Medicare is the nation's largest insurer, providing health insurance coverage for more than 39 million Americans over 65, and people with disabilities. It does not cover outpatient prescription drugs with a few exceptions.

"With prescription drug expenditures escalating so rapidly, it's important that we learn all we can about whether Medicare beneficiaries are obtaining or losing prescription drug coverage and how they are paying for their drugs," Poisal said. "This study helped provide us with a great deal of information."

Poisal, who is employed in HCFA's Office of Strategic Planning, works on the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, where he is primarily responsible for analyses of prescription drug issues. But he also handles other topics such as health insurance trends and income-related issues.

A Severna Park, Md., native, Poisal graduated in 1988 from Severna Park High School. He received a bachelor's degree cum laude in 1992 from Towson University in Towson, Md. He is currently working on a master's degree in business administration at the University of Baltimore.