{"id":59472,"date":"2023-08-18T11:16:48","date_gmt":"2023-08-18T18:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=59472"},"modified":"2023-08-18T11:16:48","modified_gmt":"2023-08-18T18:16:48","slug":"health-officials-cbos-detail-efforts-to-protect-health-care-for-15-5-million-californians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=59472","title":{"rendered":"Health Officials, CBOs Detail Efforts to Protect Health Care for 15.5 Million Californians"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Selen Ozturk<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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With 15.5 million Medi-Cal members up for renewal, health officials and CBOs are working to ensure Californians maintain continuous coverage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Between June 2023 and May 2024, 15.5 million Medi-Cal enrollees \u2014 one-third of all Californians \u2014 will have their eligibility redetermined as part of the \u201cgreat unwinding\u201d of Medicaid enrollees underway nationwide.<\/p>\n

At a\u00a0briefing held by EMS and California Black Media<\/a>, state health directors and leaders from community-based organizations (CBOs) explained how they are ensuring that Californians maintain continuous coverage and the impact of redetermination so far on Medi-Cal patients \u2014 particularly in underserved or vulnerable populations.<\/p>\n

Providing continuous coverage: Medi-Cal disenrollments and transitions<\/h2>\n

Yingjia Huang, deputy director of Health Care Benefits and Eligibility for the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), discussed data on June redetermination numbers, which\u00a0DHCS published<\/a>\u00a0on August 7.<\/p>\n

In June, the first month of disenrollments, 21% \u2014 or 225,231 people \u2014 from the over one million Californians up for renewal were dropped from Medi-Cal, Huang said. For each month through May 2024, DHCS anticipates a similar one million up for renewal. Of those disenrolled in June, over half identified as Hispanic, 16% as white, 6% as Black and 2% AAPI.<\/p>\n

However, nearly 87% of those disenrolled were dropped for procedural reasons, i.e. \u201cbecause the member did not return the renewal packet,\u201d said Huang. Those disenrolled procedurally have 90 days from June, through September 30, to return their packets to get reinstated.<\/p>\n

Through a\u00a0state program<\/a>\u00a0launched last June, those disenrolled due to higher income are automatically enrolled in Covered California, the state\u2019s health care marketplace.<\/p>\n

Jessica Altman, CEO of Covered California (CC), said that of those auto-enrolled from Medi-Cal, a third pay no premiums, two-thirds pay $10 or less monthly, and nearly 90% receive financial help for health insurance.<\/p>\n

In tandem with a $25 million media outreach campaign launched by DHCS to share Medi-Cal renewal information in print and digital media across 19 languages statewide, Altman said Covered California, too, has been sharing Medi-Cal transition details through television, radio, social media, digital, and print campaigns across languages like Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and Vietnamese.<\/p>\n

CBOs navigate redetermination on the frontlines<\/h2>\n

Through its Health Enrollment Navigators Project, which was awarded $60 million through\u00a0SB 154<\/a>\u00a0in June 2022, DHCS has funded over 150 CBOs to help those facing disenrollment navigate redetermination.<\/p>\n

Louise McCarthy, CEO of the Community Clinic Association of LA County (CCALAC), said that LA County \u2014 having\u00a0nearly a third<\/a>\u00a0of California\u2019s population \u2014 is the \u201ccanary in the coal mine\u201d for redetermination statewide. CCALAC comprises 133 nonprofits serving 1.89 million Angelenos every year, 64% of which are on Medi-Cal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe data at the state level rings true with what\u2019s happening here locally,\u201d McCarthy said. Despite outreach campaigns, many CCALAC clients weren\u2019t returning paperwork, \u201coften because they moved since the pandemic and their address changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosario Arreola Pro, chief operations officer of the California Rural Health Indian Board (CRHIB) representing 19 tribal clinics statewide, said the impacts of unprotected health care are particularly unaddressed for American Indians in California. Although DHCS currently has no data as to Native American redetermination, 30 to 60% of patients served by tribal clinics are Medi-Cal beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

Thus, said Pro, CRHIB\u2019s measures to ensure coverage on this front are urgent. Its most crucial measures include text, phone, social media, and email outreach campaigns reminding clients to update their contact information and open their mail; ensuring that phone visits remain reimbursable for tribal clinics, \u201cespecially those in remote areas where internet may not be reliable\u201d; and providing transporters in these areas to deliver necessary paperwork.<\/p>\n

Dr. Seciah Aquino, executive director of the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California (LCHS), added that measures like these are also key to ensuring coverage for Latinos, who represent 53.2% of those disenrolled from Medi-Cal so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue to see that number rise,\u201d she said, \u201cand this is not okay for Latinos, who are still recovering from a devastating pandemic. Our health is very fragile.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May,\u00a0CDPH data<\/a>\u00a0revealed that Latinos comprised about 44% of COVID cases and 42% of COVID deaths.<\/p>\n

\u2018Fear and confusion\u2019 around Medi-Cal redetermination<\/h2>\n

While communication campaigns are reaching Spanish speakers statewide, LCHS \u2014 which represents over 40% of Californian Latinos, or over 16 million \u2014 has found that \u201cthere is still a lot of fear and confusion in terms of what to do,\u201d Aquino continued. \u201cPeople understand that these changes are coming and ongoing, but don\u2019t understand where to follow up and how we can help them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Language access and data disaggregation challenges worsen these communication gaps.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur community is not a monolith, and we have many indigenous Mesoamericans who have not been able to receive information ,\u201d said Aquino. Getting DHCS redetermination numbers on these communities specifically is key to outreach. \u201cWhen you keep people healthy, you keep your economy healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayra Alvarez, president of the Children\u2019s Partnership, said youth are among those most vulnerable to redetermination, as 5.7 million children \u2014 nearly 60% of those statewide \u2014 rely on Medi-Cal, and nearly 70% of these are children of color. Among the two to three million Californians which DCHS has estimated may lose Medi-Cal, she estimates that up to 1 million are children.<\/p>\n

Although procedural disenrollment numbers are clear, the reasons for them remain largely undetermined, she noted. While communication issues like language access hinder families and youth from continuous care, CBOs are key to addressing these challenges at the ground level and the state is helping prevent Californians from \u201cfalling through the cracks,\u201d Alvarez said.<\/p>\n

For example,\u00a0AB 2402<\/a>, passed in August 2022, ensures multi-year continuous coverage for children ages zero to five and removes procedural barriers to care, but it won\u2019t be in effect until 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cFifteen million of us depend on Medi-Cal, including over half of all kids,\u201d Alvarez added. \u201cIf one family, one child, one person loses coverage unnecessarily, that\u2019s unacceptable. Keeping Californians from falling through the cracks \u2026 is an all-hands-on-deck effort.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BySelen Ozturk Aug 16, 2023 With...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59473,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59472\/revisions\/59473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}