Advocacy
As a statewide advocate for community health centers, their
patients, and the communities they serve, TACHC staff serve
on a number of coalitions, notably the Texas
CHIP Coalition , to promote health coverage, outreach and
enrollment in public insurance programs, and smart state policies
and practices that make it easy for families to get and keep
health coverage. During the 2007 legislative session, TACHC
participated in the successful Insure Texas Kids Campaign to
fight for the restoration of the CHIP program.
Training
In an effort to ensure that community health center patients
receive up to date information on benefits and programs available
to them at their initial point of contact, TACHC has created
online training webcasts for health center front line staff
on major public insurance programs. We have recently completed
a series of three webcasts focusing on Medicaid for Pregnant
Women and the Women’s Health Program, CHIP and Children’s
Medicaid, and Medicare. You can find archived versions of
these webcasts here.
Outstationed Eligibility Workers
TACHC has an ongoing effort to encourage the placement of
Outstationed Eligibility Workers (OEWs) in community health
center sites. OEWs are state employee eligibility workers
who process health center clients’ Medicaid applications
on site. Federal law requires states to place eligibility
workers in sites other than state eligibility offices, specifically
naming Disproportionate Share Hospitals and FQHCs, because
these are provider sites that see a high volume of pregnant
women and children. There are approximately 30 OEWs stationed
in FQHCs around the state.
Currently, OEWs are only officially allowed to process initial
Medicaid applications for children and pregnant women. There
is much opportunity to expand this role. Beyond processing
new Medicaid applications, the workers could also certify
Medicaid renewals, CHIP applications, Women’s Health
Waiver Program applications, and applications for the new
CHIP Perinatal program. Expanding both the number of outstationed
workers and their role at health centers could substantially
increase access to public benefits for low income populations
across the state.
Research and Analysis
As part of the recently completed Covering Kids and Families
Initiative, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,
TACHC supported the analysis and writing of the report, Child
Friendly? How Texas’ Policy Choices Affect Whether Children
Get Enrolled and Stay Enrolled In Medicaid and CHIP, written
by Anne Dunkelberg of the Center for Public Policy Priorities.
This report highlights state policies in children’s
health coverage along with the recent problems with the Texas
eligibility system that prevented eligible children from receiving
coverage. |
