Once upon a time, there were the , then the in-person assisters, and the certified application counselors.
Now, add community health centers to the list of individuals and organizations available to help consumers sign up for the new health insurance marketplaces scheduled to open Oct. 1.
On Thursday, the Obama administration pledged to help community health centers provide in-person enrollment assistance to uninsured patients. There are 1,200 health centers across the country, treating about 21 million patients each year.
鈥淗ealth centers have extensive experience providing eligibility assistance to patients, are providing care in communities across the nation and are well-positioned to support enrollment efforts,鈥 Health and Human Services聽Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a press release.
Health centers tend to provide care for many uninsured Americans and have long helped patients sign up for Medicaid and the Children鈥檚 Health Insurance Program. Now, they鈥檒l also be helping to determine patients’ eligibility for subsidies available to 聽individuals and families earning less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level to buy private health insurance coverage on the exchange.
About 60 percent of the patients who visit health centers are minorities, who make up a bulk of the uninsured. Many come to the centers for relatively minor problems and preventive care and are often聽healthy. These are exactly the sort of people the government if premiums are to be kept low in the exchanges.
The new funds will double the resources available to community health centers for enrollment efforts. Each grantee will receive a base of approximately $50,000 to hire at least one additional full time employee who will focus exclusively on enrollment. 聽There are currently 4,000 community health center employees nationwide focused on enrollment鈥 HHS hopes to nearly double that.
And this time, the administration didn鈥檛 have to for money to pay for outreach efforts. Funding for the program comes from money specifically allocated to community health centers in the Affordable Care Act.
A set amount of funding is available for each state, as shown in this, based on the number of community health centers in the state and their proportion of uninsured patients. Funding ranges from $22,029,348 for California down to $313,467 for North Dakota.
Community health centers have to apply for the funding and applications are due soon: May 31, 2013.
