Connecting Kids to Coverage National Campaign Notes: Addressing Barriers to Health Coverage through Equitable Outreach

Addressing Barriers to Health Coverage through Equitable Outreach 

Families who are of racial or ethnic minority populations often face barriers to obtaining health coverage, such as limited English proficiency, mixed immigration status within the household, and limited access to enrollment assistance or culturally and linguistically appropriate care. For example, Hispanic children have more than twice the uninsurance rate compared to their white peers. This puts them at risk for missing out on important preventive and routine care, which is crucial to social and physical development, keeping up in school, and overall health. Equitable outreach is a key priority of the Connecting Kids to Coverage National Campaign to ensure eligible families of all backgrounds have access to affordable and comprehensive coverage that Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) offers.

The Campaign’s ready-to-use materials highlights important Medicaid and CHIP enrollment information for families across the country. Using these tools and resources can help your organization get children and teens up to age 19 enrolled today:

• In-Language Materials: Many of the Campaign’s materials are translated into Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Burmese, Chinese, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hmong, Italian, Khmer, Korean, Lingala, Marshallese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Somali, Spanish Tagalog and Vietnamese.
• Immigrant Family Fact Sheet: This fact sheet shares important information for immigrant families to know about when applying for Medicaid and CHIP benefits.
• American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) full catalog of tools: CMS’ Division of Tribal Affairs has developed free AI/AN resources, including customizable fact sheets on Medicaid and CHIP basics, a report discussing barriers to AI/AN access to Medicaid and CHIP, enrollment strategies, tribal-state collaborations, and other best practices, and more.

Additionally, the Campaign’s Multicultural Outreach Initiative page provides outreach tools tailored to getting ethnically diverse families the important coverage they need, including those in non-English speaking households.

Explore Our Key Partnerships
The Campaign continues to work closely with partners and community-based organizations who focus on conducting outreach to help eligible families get enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP. We are grateful for their on-going support, outreach efforts, and the impact they have made in communities across the country. See below to explore resources from some of our Campaign partners:

• American Dental Association (ADA): The American Dental Association sets out to help dentists succeed and support the advancement of the health of the public. The ADA has a number of resources on their website that help to educate the public and expand access to care, including Oral Health Resources and Community Initiatives. The ADA recently moved Health Equity forward with a toolkit for member use, participation in a multi-organizational Health Equity collaboration (which includes the AMA), and actively works with the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) to connect dental patients to the right care at the right time. Additionally, members of the ADA Presidential Task Force on Medicaid have been invited to serve on an Advisory Committee for CMS to offer insights on program reforms which will enhance utilization for underserved populations. The ADA joined a recent Campaign webinar about the importance of oral health and the use of dental benefits under Medicaid and CHIP.
• American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP): The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of more than 67,000 pediatricians committed to the optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. They offer helpful resources such as the AAP Flu and Early Childhood Development toolkits, Journals and Publications, and more. Recently, AAP was featured as a speaker on a Campaign webinar focusing on childhood mental health and encouraging the use of mental and behavioral health benefits covered under Medicaid and CHIP.
• Children’s Hospital Association (CHA): The Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) advances child health through innovation in the quality, cost, and delivery of care within more than 220 children’s hospitals and health systems around the country. They offer helpful resources such as the online course focusing on pediatric RSV care and the “Sound The Alarm for Kids” toolkit to share information on a variety of child health topics. They were also featured on a recent webinar about childhood mental health and encouraging the use of mental and behavioral health benefits covered under Medicaid and CHIP.
• Bright by Text (BBT): Bright by Text is a nationwide text messaging service that helps expecting families, parents and caregivers with children ranging from zero to eight years old build nurturing caregiver-child relationships, strengthen families, promote healthy child development, and improve school readiness through free tips, information, games, timed exactly to a child’s age. Families can sign up for free text messages in either English or Spanish by texting BRIGHT to 274 448 or visiting this site.
• Zero to Three: Zero to Three aims to ensure that all babies and toddlers have a strong start in life. They envision a society that has the knowledge and will to support all infants and toddlers in reaching their full potential by supporting the caring adults who touch their lives. They offer several resources such as the Zero to Three Journal, Podcast, and Webinar series all providing helpful information regarding parent-child relationships, child development, and more. Learn more about their texting programs, Text4Teachers and Text4HomeVisitors, and a wide array of mobile applications here.

Current & Upcoming Observances

• New Year’s Day (1/1)
• National Children’s Dental Health Month (February)

Share the Campaign materials. The ever-growing, multi-lingual Outreach Tool Library features a variety of targeted resources to use in your outreach and enrollment efforts, available in multiple formats.