Getting uninsured Americans covered by insurance is not just a goal of the federal government's. It has also become a goal of the American Hospital Association's and at its annual membership meeting in April, a panel discussion focused on how to reach that goal.
Back in September of 2011, several healthcare groups, including the AHA, launched Enroll America, a nonpartisan organization with the mission to ensure that all uninsured Americans are enrolled in and retain health coverage as the Affordable Care Act ramps up and the mandatory health insurance law goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2014.
[See also: Uninsured could reach 52 million by 2010, new study says]
"What Enroll America has been doing is identifying experiences within their enrollment efforts, identifying best practices on what has worked so far, figuring out how to raise awareness, and communicate these messages to everyone at the local level so they can adopt some of these user-friendly processes," said AHA President and CEO Rich Umbdenstock.
Getting the word out to the uninsured is one of the biggest challenges hospitals face.
When the Health Leadership Council (HLC) launched an initiative in 2007 to link uninsured individuals in 10 target markets with high socioeconomic diversity with available public and private health coverage options they found that people generally did not know how to find information on health coverage said Mary Grealy, president of HLC. Fifty-four percent of people surveyed said they did not know how to find information on health coverage, and among those who said they knew where to look, a majority said the Internet or through friends or family.
"Many said they couldn't afford insurance but most had no idea how much it actually cost," said Grealy. "Also, many small businesses want to offer coverage but they don't have dedicated human resources department because they are so small, which makes it difficult to do this."
[See also: Uninsured account for nearly a fifth of ER visits]
With 47 million or more uninsured Americans currently, hospitals not only have a vested interest in enrolling those individuals in health coverage, they can play an important role in educating and engaging awareness of insurance options not only for the uninsured population, but also the individuals and partner organizations that can reach the uninsured population, such as family members or community groups, said Anne Filipic, president of Enroll America.
"Right now, raising awareness is not enough though, so this is where micro-targeting comes in. What are tactics to meet people where their skepticisms are? How do we get them through the front door to enroll?" said Filipic. "In terms of how we can achieve our goals, we know this is no easy task."
Filipic added that Enroll America research found that 78 percent of the uninsured don't know about the new health insurance exchanges and 83 percent of people who could be eligible for the Medicaid expansion don't know about it.
"When you take those numbers and compare them to enrollment numbers of programs that are better known already, we know we have a huge challenge ahead of us," she said. Given those challenges, she recommends that hospital systems develop a plan for spreading important health coverage information.
"Use data and analytics to find those that are uninsured," she said. "Recognize what everyone's roles in the outreach efforts will be. They need to know where to send people to find out more information."
Since 2000, St. John Providence Health System, which covers a service area in Michigan that accounts for 43 percent of the state's population, has been working on increasing the number of individuals enrolled in health coverage said Cynthia Taueg, vice president of ambulatory and community health services at the health system. She said through the use of various health insurance expos in communities and many outreach activities within local schools and urgent care centers, they have been able to enroll a large number of uninsured individuals in some form of health insurance.
"In 2012 we had 19,000 Medicaid applications that were processed. Most came through the ED, so that has become a critical access point for getting people enrolled," she said. "Face-to-face contact we found has made a big difference. We can't emphasize that enough."
[See also: Uninsured rate among children eligible for Medicaid, CHIP falls 10 percent]