WVHKFC -- Steering Committee

April 7, 2020

The meeting was called to order and the minutes from the 3-3-04 meeting were reviewed and approved. Those present include Pam Gunter, Sharon Carte, Brian Cunningham, Shelley Baston, Gary Zuckett, Joe Miller, Jennifer Kayrouz, Nancy Tolliver, Beverly Bolles, Julie Greathouse, Renate Pore, Julie McCumbers, and Marla Short.

Web Site Update- Joe Miller gave an update on the improvements to the website. Improvements include expanded information regarding coverage for uninsured, a discussion forum for outreach/coverage thoughts and ideas, and several other improvements.

Cover the Uninsured Week- An update was given on the activities that are being planned for this national event. Friday, May 7, 2020 will be the WV kick-off event. An interfaith breakfast at the Cultural Center is being planned in the morning and will be followed by a press event on the steps of the Capitol. A declaration will be read and an award presented to CAMC for the development of their Charity Care policy. This week also coincides with National Hospital Week and National Women’s Health Week. Many Primary Care Clinics are coordinating events that will roll both events in one. Community Partners are encouraged to hold events or partner with other organizations that are holding events. Brian Cunningham reminded us that many of the Primary Care clinics are participating in the 340B drug program, which will cover all uninsured.

CHIP update- CHIP has implemented the passive renewal process in which enrollees who are due to renew are sent a pre-populated form and asked to verify if all information is still correct. If so, they only need to sign and return the form. There are spaces available to make corrections to the information on file. They are experiencing a few issues with people writing in the information that has not changed causing the application to be pulled for redetermination. Some formatting changes will be made that will make it more user friendly and eliminate the confusion. There are no specific numbers yet, but the current enrollment is at an all time high (23,000), which indicates that this process may prove to be effective in maintaining enrollment.

The CHIP expansion study bill passed, although the Federal Government will not let the expansion go through with no state cost. The state has to offset or subtract the match amount from their Federal draw down. This will be examined during the study process. The study will be presented to the Legislature during the August interims. Primary Care budget line item and mortgage line item were absent or stripped down in the Governor’s proposed budget for this Legislative session. The items were replaced with no cuts to the line items.

Medicaid Update- The Legislature found the funding to continue the Medicaid program for the 2004-05 budget. Legislators should be congratulated on their support for CHIP and Medicaid during this session. Medicaid Managed Care just opened up in McDowell and Wyoming counties.

Process Improvement Collaborative Update- The collaborative is going well. The main focus of this process is how to keep CHIP cases open after 12 months. After the first 12 months 50% of the cases are closed due to non-enrollment. The PIC team recently attended a conference in Tennessee and presented the results of a survey that was conducted on CHIP clients who were due for re-enrollment but had not yet enrolled. Of the families that were contacted, 68% reenrolled. Most were very receptive to being contacted.

An area that the coalition may want to address for next year is to survey and to do focus groups to address education to CHIP/Medicaid recipients on what is expected in terms of how to enroll, reenroll.

Income Maintenance Manual- Irregular Income Brian Cunningham pointed out that irregular income (typically bonuses and overtime pay) is not counted for Qualified Child Medicaid, but it now states in the Income Maintenance Manual that it is now counted for CHIP eligibility if earned in the month of application. This may affect eligibility for many families. SSI income is an issue as well. It is not to be counted in determining income or family size, yet many families are found ineligible for coverage due to the inclusion of this income in their determination.
Confidentiality forms are not being allowed in some of the offices for outreach workers to discuss aspects of their enrollment. This is occurring in offices where they had previously allowed signed confidentiality forms for outreach workers to discuss particular cases. A core group meeting needs to be set-up to develop a strategy and outline the issues. A meeting then needs to be scheduled with the policy unit to strategize solutions and develop a policy and process committee.

Tobacco Cessation Support Groups- The Legacy Foundation is looking for sponsors for support groups for people who have gone through their smoking cessation program. Counties that are targeted are Boone, Kanawha, Putnam and Clay counties. A $200 per meeting will be paid for support meetings held through next March. For more information contact Nancy Tolliver.

The meeting was adjourned and was followed by a discussion on the development of a ‘Health Care Safety Net’ training program.

The May meeting has been cancelled. The next meeting will be held on June 2, 2020 from 10-12.

Minutes submitted by Julie Greathouse 4-8-04