Most uninsured children are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but are not yet enrolled so finding them and helping them enroll is critical to successfully reducing the uninsured rate for children. As my colleague Tricia Brooks has pointed out many times, it is no secret that sustained outreach and enrollment support is the key to successfully connecting uninsured kids to coverage.
That’s why we were happy to see the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announce $32 million is available to help connect children with coverage through Medicaid and CHIP. The funds will support activities aimed at alerting families to the availability of Medicaid and CHIP health coverage, identifying children likely to be eligible, and assisting families with the application and renewal process.
This round of outreach and enrollment “cooperative agreements” were funded by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) of 2015. They were first authorized under CHIPRA in 2009 and extended under the Affordable Care Act. To date, approximately $126 million in grant funding has been awarded to help reach eligible but unenrolled children.
Awards will range in size from $250,000 to $1 million and will cover a two-year period. Eligible applicants include nonprofit organizations, schools, school districts, state and local governments, Indian tribes and tribal organizations and certain health care providers. Applicants are asked to target populations likely to be eligible for Medicaid and CHIP, but generally less likely to be enrolled such as teens, Latino children and children living in rural areas.
Applicants are encouraged to consider any of the following outreach strategies that have been shown to be effective:
- Engaging schools, a trusted source of information for parents, in outreach, enrollment and retention activities
- Bridging health coverage disparities by reaching out to subgroups of children that exhibit lower than average health coverage rates (e.g. teens, Hispanics or children in rural areas)
- Establishing and developing application assistance resources to provide high quality, reliable Medicaid/CHIP enrollment and renewal services in local communities.
A letter of intent to apply is required by December 16th. The letter is non-binding but must be submitted in order to be eligible to submit an application. Proposals are due January 20, 2016. Any organization interested in applying can find more information on the grant opportunity at www.grants.gov
Editor’s Note: CMS announced a conference call for prospective applicants on Monday, November 30th from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. EST.
