Oral

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, there are nine million children in the United States who are without health insurance all year. Two-thirds, six million, of these children are eligible for insurance under either Medicaid or their State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Still more children lack access to continuous healthcare services because of interruptions in their insurance coverage which leave them uninsured for part of the year. This presentation will focus on strategies to improve health insurance coverage for eligible children. We will begin with a description of a method to locate eligible children within a large county using multiple population-based data sources. Next we will discuss a community coalition approach to identifying, enrolling, and sustaining enrollment in children's Medicaid/SCHIP by addressing barriers including mandatory waiting times, costs and complex application forms. In California, counties have collaborated to form child health initiatives to expand insurance coverage. We will present preliminary assessment of this effort. Florida has the third highest number of uninsured children in the country. A Florida model to identify children at risk of losing continuous insurance coverage will be presented, discussing predisposing, enabling, and need factors identified. This will be followed by a description of a community outreach campaign to increase child health insurance enrollment in Florida, and an assessment of its accomplishments.

Session Objectives: At the end of this session, participants will be better able to: • List three data sources that can be used to assist in identifying the locations of uninsured children in a given community • Describe three key barriers to outreach and enrollment in children’s Medicaid/SCHIP programs • Recognize the role and function of community coalitions in mobilizing community and systems change • Identify challenges and solutions to reducing barriers to outreach and enrollment in children’s Medicaid/SCHIP • Describe how insurance expansion programs provide access and coverage for vulnerable children and the associated public health policy implications • Discuss importance of addressing continuous health insurance coverage within health planning and policy development

CE Credits: CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing