Partnerships and strategies to advance NPM #15

Catalyst Center. Improving financing of care for children and youth with special health care needs.

What have we done for you lately?

In this issue we wanted to share what we learned about an innovative partnership in Arizona (AZ) that helps families determine which Marketplace health plans best meet the needs of their children with special health care needs (CSHCN). We learned about this collaboration while conducting an interview with Arizona Title V/CSHCN program staff as part of our structured interview project.

Arizona Title V/CSHCN program and the Arizona Alliance partner to ensure CSHCN have access to adequate health insurance

The largest navigator program in Arizona is the Arizona Alliance of Community Health Centers (Alliance). The AZ Title V/CSHCN program has enjoyed an ongoing relationship with the Alliance for several years and has worked closely with them the past two years to identify some gaps and issues, as well as information and resources of importance to families raising CSHCN who are shopping for Marketplace health plans. As a result, the Alliance has worked to develop navigators who are comfortable working with families raising CSHCN and individuals with disabilities. Arizona has many Marketplace options so it is important to have navigators and other consumer assistors who have expertise in assisting families with CSHCN to find a health plan or group of plans that will meet their needs. As not every navigator starts out with the training or experience to do that well, the Title V/CSHCN program works with the Alliance to identify navigators who have that higher level of training and experience.

Resourceful way to work towards advancing National Performance Measure #15 (more about NPM #15 below)!

Join us at the AMCHP 2016 conference to hear more partnership examples

If you will be at the rescheduled AMCHP conference on Friday, April 8, please come to our session Leveraging Partnerships to Promote Title V/CSHCN Transformation: Results from the Catalyst Center Structured Interviews with Title V, Medicaid, and Family Leaders. This workshop is an opportunity to learn about Title V partnerships that help advance several of the NPMs, including NPM #15: Adequate Insurance Coverage. You can learn more about the structured interview project in our October Monthly Update

In case you missed it:

In honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday earlier this month, we shared one of our favorite Seussisms! Scanning the resources in this Environmental Scan of Strategies for NPM #15 (National Performance Measure about adequate insurance coverage), produced by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, will teach you what you need to know to "have fun" working to ensure adequate insurance for children, including children with special health care needs, 0 through 17.

Other news of note:

IRS Issues Guidance on Overlapping Medicaid and Marketplace Coverage, a blog by Tricia Brooks, a Senior Fellow at the Georgetown Center for Children and Families.

About the Catalyst Center

The Catalyst Center, the National Center for Health Insurance and Financing for Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs, is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number U41MC13618, $473,000. This information or content and conclusions are those of the Catalyst Center staff and should not be construed as the official position or policy of nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS, or the U.S. Government.
LT Leticia Manning, MPH, MCHB/HRSA Project Officer.

Visit our website at www.catalystctr.org Boston University.

Catalyst Center, Health & Disability Working Group

at Boston University School of Public Health