Community Partners believes that informed, engaged outreach and enrollment workers are essential to achieving guaranteed, affordable, quality health care for everyone. The design of each of our outreach initiatives is built on this core belief.
Our Health Access Network (HAN) is the core of Community Partners programming. The network spans Massachusetts and is made up of outreach workers and others with interest in public health coverage. HAN members work in community-based organizations, hospitals and community health centers. Through HAN, Community Partners:
HAN provides this information and support through regular physical meetings in Eastern and Western Massachusetts, and through dynamic online communications.
Funding for HAN is provided by Public Welfare Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services and The Boston Foundation. For additional information on HAN, including meeting schedule, click here: HAN Meetings.
The Portable Electronic Enrollment Project (PEEP) explores the innovative use of wireless and Internet technology to help people enroll in publicly funded health coverage wherever they are. PEEP outreach workers use laptops, wireless connections and web-based enrollment programs (including the state Medicaid application portal) to enroll people from hospital beds, local temp work agencies, farm fields and libraries. In addition to extending outreach workers’ reach, the PEEP model decreases the turnaround time, improves the accuracy of the application process, and saves thousands of dollars of outreach workers’ time by creating a more efficient workflow.
The initial PEEP project, a three-year pilot in western Massachusetts, concluded in September 2007. Primary funding for the pilot was provided by Technology Opportunities Program (TOP), NTIA, U.S. Dept. of Commerce with generous matching funds provided by a number of other foundations, including Jessie B. Cox Charitable Trust and McKesson Corporation.
Plans to identify funding partners to expand this model statewide as MassPEEP are underway.
For more information, please see PEEP Final Evaluation Report (PDF, 235KB) and PEEP Final Evaluation Executive Summary (PDF), or email info@compartners.org.
Once on-line applications for Food Stamps as well as health coverage became possible in Massachusetts, PEEP outreach workers were perfectly positioned to include Food Stamp assistance in their range of services. The PEEP-FSP program, funded for calendar 2007 by the US Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, took advantage of this positioning. It piloted not only on-line application assistance, but also the use of a third-party follow-up team to check on applicants’ progress and help move the process forward when appropriate.
For more information, please see PEEP-FSP Evaluation Report and PEEP-FSP Lessons Learned or email info@compartners.org.
Outreach workers who help people enroll in Medicaid/SCHIP programs find that their clients continue to call them for help getting care after they have coverage. As a result these workers have become skilled at helping their clients navigate the health care system from initial coverage to life-saving care. MBE taps their wisdom to create the Health Access Continuum, a model for proactive follow-up that explores how to increase the likelihood that once enrolled in health insurance, people will get the health care they need.
Primary funding for the MBE was provided by Office of Rural Health Policy, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services.
For inquiries, info@compartners.org.
