Success Stories
Diego's Story
Your enthusiasm and continued support is the catalyst that brings success stories to our community. We would like to share with you and inspirational story of how the Children’s Health Initiative (CHI) Napa County continues to provide children with exceptional care.
CHI Napa County’s vision addresses the health needs of underserved children rather than simply tackling the urgent care health needs of individual children, we are working to reduce the number of uninsured children in Napa County.
CHI Napa County recently helped Diego and his family secure health care services and insurance coverage. Diego is a monolingual 7th grade student enrolled in a Napa Valley public school. Diego has a very serious hearing problem that has been unaddressed since he was 8 years old, when his medically-primitive hearing aids, were lost. He also has a developmental learning disability. As an undocumented child, Diego and his family would have had few resources without the CHI Napa County’s Healthy Kids’ program.
The school nurse began Diego’s health care by making referrals to Clinic Ole and Sister Ann’s Dental Clinic. Diego experienced a very positive medical encounter in a dental examination with bi-lingual practitioners. After x-rays and a thorough check-up, it was determined that he may require braces. A private practice ENT Specialist was also brought in to evaluate Diego’s hearing and prescribe hearing aids. Simultaneously, Diego parents were enrolling him in Healthy Kids.
In past, heath care services for Diego would have stopped when the initial CHDP services ended. Because of CHI Napa County, Diego’s parents are paying an affordable monthly family share-of cost and Diego is enrolled in subsidized health insurance though Healthy Kids, greatly improving the families’ access to health services. Further, CHI Napa County case management and retention service will ensure that Diego’s health, dental and vision services occur in the future and the cost will be covered under Healthy Kids.
At a systems level, the CHI Napa County is demonstrating that counties can make incremental improvements to the health system and help address the health coverage needs of children while statewide policy makers are developing a comprehensive plan to provide health coverage to all California’s residents.
Among the goals of the CHI Napa County is to build policy momentum that supports health coverage expansion. Napa County has worked hard to create a children’s access model that serves all children, including children whose families are undocumented. We are demonstrating to the state’s leadership that this is a program worthy of statewide implementation.
As a result of the communities support the CHI Napa County is able to provide children, such as Diego, the opportunity to receive the health services they deserve. It is clear that providing health care coverage to all children makes sense on many levels – it is good for our children, their families, our schools and hospitals, or economy and out community. Above all, by having healthy children within the Napa Valley Community our future gains the most of all.
Angel's Story
On October 26, 2006 CHI received a telephone call from a distraught mother, who we will call Noemi. The CHI Health Access Services Coordinator took the call. The mother was crying so hard that the CHI Coordinator had a difficult time making out what she was saying. The Coordinator asked her to take a deep breath and assured the mother that she would do whatever she could to help. Now that Noemi was a bit calmer, she explained that her youngest son had spent the past two days in the hospital. Angel was only ten months old, and doctors strongly suspected that he may have leukemia, a life threatening disease needing immediate medical attention.
Noemi explained that she had applied to the Medi-Cal Program to help cover the fast-mounting and exorbitant medical bills. Once the family received access to this public insurance program, they would have admission to a very comprehensive health insurance benefit package, but that application process was not yet complete. Noemi called the Medi-Cal Program to see if there was a way to move things along because of the upcoming and intensive testing her son was about to endure. The Medi-Cal Program Eligibility Worker empathized with Noemi’s situation and her sons need for health coverage and reassured her application was moving forward.
The CHI Coordinator invited Noemi to meet with her after she left her work that afternoon, a few hours after that initial telephone to the CHI office. The CHI Coordinator also assured Noemi that she would help facilitate the process with the Medi-Cal Program. The Coordinator had Noemi sign a release of information form so that she could share information with the Medi-Cal program and vice versa. The CHI Coordinator then made a phone call to the Medi-Cal Program Supervisor and explained Noemi’s situation and the pending Medi-Cal application. The Medi-Cal Program Supervisor immediately pulled up Noemi’s file and asked the original worker to expedite services for this family. Noemi’s family was approved for Medi-Cal with benefits that would be retroactive to her application date.
In speaking to Noemi since the approval of the families’ Medi-Cal benefits, she has taken Angel to all of his follow-up appointments. After many exhausting and bleak days at the hospital and doctors’ offices, Noemi was ecstatic to report that Angel does not have leukemia. Thanks to the collaboration of the Children’s Health Initiative and the Medi-Cal Program, Angel has access to health services that will help keep him healthy for his future.
Noemi expresses her deepest and sincerest thanks to CHI and to Napa County’s Medi-Cal Program.