martes, 10 de abril de 2007
Children’s Health Initiative to expand in Napa Countywide launch comes after pilot effort enrolls 250 youth
By Dorsey Kindler
Children’s Health Initiative Napa County, an effort to identify low-income children and enroll them in health insurance programs, will finish its pilot program in the Carneros region this week and will begin enrollment countywide.
Launched in November 2005, the pilot program targeted three elementary schools that had a disproportionately high number of uninsured children, according to county statistics. The effort resulted in 250 students enrolled in health insurance programs and provided the momentum necessary to propel the program upvalley.
CHI will partner with the Calistoga Family Center on April 17, and will begin penetrating other sections of the county over time according to Executive Director Mark Diel.
CHI Napa County was modeled after Sonoma County’s program, which is part of 26 efforts across the state. The premise of all CHI programs is that there is a group of families that are uninsured because they fall into an income gap between those eligible for Medi-Cal and those well off enough to secure their own health care for children on their own.
According to CHI, families fall into this gap at 300 percent of the federal poverty level, which translates into a yearly income of $58,000 for a family of four in Napa County. The organization estimates that of the 3,700 uninsured children countywide, 375 to 750 uninsured children are eligible for “gap insurance.”
Officially recognized as Healthy Kids, gap insurance is a special product that was created in conjunction with Medi-Cal to provide gap children with an affordable means of health insurance.
The role of CHI is to identify qualified children and enroll them for medical, vision and health coverage provided through Healthy Kids and Medi-Cal. In addition, the organization provides parent education to help families access and retain such services. CHI also provides hardship funds for families temporarily unable to make co-payments.
“The whole purpose of CHI is to make insurance affordable to families,” said Connie Battisti, president of Children's Health Initiative Napa County. “In the long run, if children don’t have regular access to health care, it can be much more expensive down the road.”Benefits to hospitals, economy Queen of the Valley Hospital spokesman Dante Allen agrees that Napa County hospitals stand to benefit from the initiative. Uninsured families tend to rely on emergency rooms for primary care, he said. And no emergency room is designed to handle that added capacity.
“Families need to be focused on long-term health, he said. “To get that kind of care from the emergency room is going to be insufficient. Because of the higher level of trauma being dealt with, they typically are going to have to wait longer for care. And because ER doctors don’t have that history that a personal physician would have, patients are going to need more workup to get to the root of the issue.”
Mr. Allen said that along with reducing the number of non-essential emergency room visits, CHI Napa County would benefit enrolled children by providing them with a “medical home.”
The program will benefit Napa County in several other ways, according to Ms. Battisti:
-- Because the spread of disease is slowed or eliminated by proper preventive care for children, parents miss fewer workdays, contributing to productivity
-- Children with health insurance typically perform better and miss fewer days of school that those without, resulting in more government money for schools
-- According to a recent study commissioned by the California Endowment, Napa County would receive an additional estimated state and federal revenue in matching funds of $1.9 million by enrolling all of the county’s 3,700 uninsured children.
CHI Napa County is funded both publicly through Medi-Cal and other government programs as well as privately through such organizations as the Napa Valley Vintners, First 5 Napa County, the Napa County Board of Supervisors, California Endowment, Queen of the Valley Hospital and the St. Joseph Health System Foundation.