Outreach and Enrollment

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed to provide millions of uninsured Americans with health insurance coverage and creates new competitive private health insurance marketplaces, called the Affordable Insurance Marketplace (also referred to as “Exchanges”), that provides millions of Americans and small businesses with access to affordable health insurance coverage. Through the Marketplace, eligible individuals are able to receive premium tax credits and cost sharing reductions to help with the cost of insurance coverage.
 
Medicaid in West Virginia was expanded in 2013 and has 2-step process to expand enrollment. The newly created Marketplace makes the eligibility determination and the Bureau for Medical Services (Medicaid) enrolls individuals and families that the Marketplace has found eligible. Medicaid expanded eligibility to coverage up to 138% of the federal poverty level. West Virginia Medicaid currently only served pregnant women, children, very low income families, aged/blind/disabled and medically needed populations. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) added adults between 19 and 65 and former foster children.
 
Our Role
 
West Virginia health centers play a vital role in the education and enrollment of the uninsured population within our state. As of the 2014 federal UDS report, health centers provided services to 47,197 uninsured West Virginians. HRSA recently provided $150 million in grant awards to 1,159 health centers. These awards began HRSA’s ongoing commitment to support health centers to help uninsured patients and others in their approved service areas gain access to new affordable health insurance coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplaces, Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program.
 
WVPCA O&E ListServ:
 
The O & E ListServ was developed to assist those people working on outreach and enrollment within health centers. The ListServ will provide a means for the WVPCA staff to forward important information and more importantly, it is a way for those of you doing this work to share questions and experiences.

For more information about Outreach and Enrollment, or to be added to the WVPCA O&E ListServ, contact Ruby Piscopo at 304-346-0032.