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186428 Health Care Reform on the ground: What Massachusetts' experiment looks like to those signing people up

Wednesday, October 29, 2008: 12:45 PM

Anne B. Rosen, M A , Community Partners, Inc., Amherst, MA
Meg Kroeplin , Community Partners, Inc., Amherst, MA
Audio (mp3) recording Multimedia recording
One of Massachusetts' advantages in tackling the challenges of universal health coverage is a statewide cadre of health access workers in hospitals, community health centers and human service agencies. These workers receive some state support to find people eligible for publicly funded programs and help them enroll. Many have been in place for a number of years, serving as trusted guides as their clients try to negotiate complex systems. When Health Care Reform was implemented in July 2006, they started adding new health care reform policies and programs to their menus. Now these workers have two years of first-hand exposure to how people are responding. Are the uninsured getting the information they need? Do they understand their options? How is the expanded application/enrollment system working? Who's getting helped and who isn't? Information gathered through Community Partners' Health Access Network sheds light on these questions.

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe Health Care Reform implementation issues as experienced by the people the policies were designed to impact 2. Evaluate the potential of health access workers in communities to promote public policies and programs and to provide useful feedback for consumer advocacy efforts

Keywords: Health Care Reform, Access to Health Care

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: M.A. in English, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1991 Founded "Entry to Health Care" Medicaid outreach program at Children's Health Program, Great Barrington MA, 1998 Has served as Coordinator of Health Access Programs at Community Partners, Inc., Amherst MA since 2003, acting as project manager for 3 federally funded outreach grant programs Has participated in 14 presentations, regional and national, on aspects of outreach, enrollment and post-enrollment effectiveness Co-author of Outreach Works: Strategies for Expanding Health Access in Communities, published by Community Partners in 2001.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Massachusetts Health Reform: A perspective from the ground
See more of: Community Health Planning and Policy Development