Online Program

Panel Discussion

To support implementation of the Affordable Care Act,, the National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities (NPA), an initiative led by the Office of Minority Health of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), identified outreach and education efforts to underserved populations, including young adults and racial and ethnic minority populations, as a priority area for 2013 and 2014. The ACA provides a significant opportunity for affordable health insurance coverage, but underserved populations present unique outreach and education challenges, including: language access, low interaction rates with the health care system, and lack of awareness of the importance of health insurance coverage. Raising awareness of the ACA is aligned with two of the NPA goals: to raise awareness of health disparities and to improve health and healthcare outcomes for racial and ethnic minority and underserved populations. Implementation of the ACA priority was executed through the NPA’s Regional Health Equity Councils (RHECs). The RHECs are health equity coalitions comprised of volunteers from diverse sectors such as community based organizations, State Offices of Minority Health and other state and local government agencies, and health care organizations. The RHECs provide a first level connection to communities and a forum for multi-sector and comprehensive approaches to health equity issues affecting communities. RHECs that conducted ACA outreach and education exercises were located within the HHS Regions II, IV, V, and VII, and targeted populations in some of the states in these regions such as New Jersey, Michigan, Missouri, and Tennessee. This session will highlight strategies used to identify and access populations in need and lessons learned from education and outreach efforts conducted during the initial open enrollment period for the ACA Health Insurance Marketplace to improve efforts in future. This session will also discuss methods and instruments used to assess the reach of education and outreach efforts, and findings and results from evaluation data collected at various RHEC ACA events. Finally, this session will highlight the critical role of the partnerships fostered through the health equity councils in leveraging limited resources, networks and spheres of influence to reach populations in need.

Session Objectives: Demonstrate regional outreach efforts to educate and enroll uninsured and underinsured individuals about the ACA Discuss the opportunities seized and the challenges faced by community-based organizations in educating and enrolling uninsured and underinsured individuals, in particular individuals from racial and ethnic minority populations Explain the strategic partnerships that had to be developed for successful outreach, education, and enrollment, and what facilitated or challenged these partnerships

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH) , Masters Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES)