BANGOR (AP) – Regional Medicare officials were in Maine on Monday to kick off their fall campaign that aims to let people know how to take advantage of the preventive services that are available through Medicare.

The campaign – called “My Health. My Medicare.” – is designed to encourage people to maximize their Medicare benefits.

Medicare officials stopped at the Penobscot Community Health Care clinic in Bangor and the Southern Maine Agency on Aging in Scarborough.

A drive-through pneumonia vaccine clinic was set up at Bangor clinic to showcase some of Medicare’s preventive benefits, which include free pneumonia and flu shots.

About 30 percent of Medicare beneficiaries in Maine aren’t taking advantage of pneumonia shots even though Medicare pays for them, officials said.

Medicare officials were also letting people know that the new enrollment period for the Medicare Part D prescription plan begins on Nov. 15 and runs through Dec. 31.

Maine is the first stop in a five-day tour of about a dozen communities in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

AP-ES-09-18-06 1256EDT