The economic downturn shaped a lot of our discussion – how it affects clients, state services, and our own organizations. For example, more clients find themselves in tears during appointments – some with problems like home foreclosure that outreach workers just can’t help fix. Many HAN organizations are taking on additional responsibilities with fewer staff. CP has also cut back staffing; we are now closed on Wednesdays.
This summer, MassHealth starting enforcing the rule that households who hadn’t paid their premium bills for 60 days or more would lose their MassHealth or Children’s Medical Security Program (CMSP) coverage. Members of these households may be starting to show up at hospitals and health centers, they may have no coverage, and they can’t get the Health Safety Net.
Tell EOHHS what their funding priorities should be next year.
"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.
This winter, about 100,000 households in the Commonwealth were protected from losing their heat, electricity and other utilities by the state utility shut-off protection laws, which prevents shut-off for households whose circumstances meet certain conditions. This protection ended on May 1, and people have begun getting shut-off notices. These notices are bad news, but CAN be used to request a MassHealth premium waiver or Commonwealth Care premium waiver.
When one of our patients contacted me to tell me about his loss of the Commonwealth Care coverage that he'd had for about three months, I was surprised, to say the least. It was the middle of the month, so it wasn't a technical coverage cut-off; he had paid his premium, was undergoing treatment with the Visiting Nurses Association (VNA) and getting medication from the pharmacy. You can imagine his surprise, among other emotions, when the VNA and the pharmacy told him that his coverage was no longer active and they couldn't help him.
This online tool identifies organizations helping with MassHealth, Commonwealth Choice and Commonwealth Care enrollment.
Tip sheets from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health about many resources available to families of children with special health needs are available here.
