Awards may be renewed for up to three years and will cover post-enrollment activities.
At both HAN meetings, Brian Rosman from Health Care For All (HCFA) led a discussion about the next steps in Health Care Reform. Before he spoke, outreach workers exchanged stories about how some of new policies in Health Care Reform are working out in practice.
Last week, the Department of Revenue released Draft 2008 Schedule HC (PDF) and Draft 2008 Schedule HC Instructions (PDF). In these drafts, the DOR explains the methods they currently plan to use to calculate 2008 mandate penalties.
Final regulations for “minimum creditable coverage” (MCC) tighten up the individual mandate beginning in 2009.
"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.
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.
