Recruitment into the CHIP Program: Barriers to Enrollment and Outreach Successes
CHIP (Child Health Insurance Program) is a major approach to improving access to health care services for children. CHIP will not improve access if children are not enrolled in the program. During the past fiscal year, a majority of states were not able to expend allocated funds because they did not enroll expected numbers of children. This paper reports on the efforts by one state (Arizona) to increase enrollment in CHIP. These efforts include specific programs by the state administrative agency for CHIP and special outreach projects funded through private foundations. Barriers to enrollment organization and administration of programs as well as perceptions of parents. Examples of administrative and legislative barriers to enrollment are requirements that children go without coverage for a set period of time before enrollment in CHIP if their parents previously had private insurance coverage, and long waiting times for processing of applications. Barriers linked to perceptions of parents include lack of appreciation of value of health insurance until a child needs health care, and past negative experiences with welfare-related agencies. The most successful outreach projects either employ intensive personal contact or are connected with health care provider agencies. Future policy issues explored are whether outreach efforts are required to keep children enrolled, and whether outreach needs to be a continuing aspect of CHIP for the program to meet its goals of improving access to health care among lower income children and children of the working poor
Learning Objectives: Improve understanding of CHIP program explain barriers to enrollment in CHIP explain characteristics of more succesful outreach efforts
Keywords: Children, Health Insurance
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