Our June 6 Western HAN meeting was an opportunity to step back and reflect on the next steps toward universal coverage in Massachusetts.
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.
MassHealth and Commonwealth Care enrollments have slowed, and outreach workers are concentrating on "churn" problems, eligibility renewals and how to help clients whose CommCare premiums will go up on July 1.
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.
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.
