"Outreach & enrollment" means much more than putting up posters and helping people fill out MassHealth applications. Recently, over the course of a two hour appointment, my supervisor and I counseled one household on eleven different public health insurance, subsidy and care programs. We helped them file four separate applications to five different insurance programs, putting together a patchwork of care options to cover the hole left by the loss of employer-sponsored insurance.
The Massachusetts Legislature continues Outreach and enrollment "mini-grants" and supports vital health access activities.
Members and applicants receiving delayed forms should fill them out immediately and file an appeal.
This month, outreach workers gave some powerful examples of how the Commonwealth Care Open Enrollment process has added some new twists to the problem of access to providers.
Download a new outreach tool to reach young uninsured men.
A new one-page guide explains the January 1, 2009 requirement.
Our last Boston HAN meeting came in the wake of the Connector Board’s decisions to shift more of the costs of Health Care Reform to consumers by raising co-pays and premiums for Commonwealth Care. Advocates continue to oppose these cost increases and push for sharing the costs more evenly with businesses. Meanwhile, outreach and enrollment workers are seeing an increase in administrative barriers to enrollment in Commonwealth Care and MassHealth.
Recently, I have seen an increase in the number of Exceptions Forms sent to Commonwealth Care applicants who the state believes have access to employer-sponsored insurance. These clients are not eligible for Commonwealth Care until they return the Form – but it can be hard to understand what makes the state mail it to these individuals in the first place.
A new pamphlet offers step-by-step guidance, just in time for taxes.
Outreach workers do the hard work of explaining policy changes to real people, so often they are among the first to hear feedback about how they are working. Not surprisingly, this was a theme of the Western Mass. Health Access Network meeting this February, when we gathered with outreach and enrollment workers from Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden counties. HAN members doing enrollment agreed that there is still confusion and frustration in their communities.
