By: Health Insurance
Submitted: 2009-12-11 11:25:16 | Word Count: 554
Children without health insurance miss 30 percent more days of school than those with it.
Uninsured children can’t focus on achieving success if they suffer from toothaches, not being able to see the blackboard or chronic or unidentified health problems, said Debbie Oswalt, executive director of Vir-ginia Health Care Foundation.
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The foundation estimates that at least 2,400 children in Danville and Pittsylvania County qualify for Virginia’s Family Access to Medical Insurance Security program, but are not enrolled, according to 2005 pre-recession data.
Both the city of Danville and Pittsylvania County rank in the top 25 localities in the state as having the most eligible children that are still uninsured, Oswalt added. A family of four with a yearly income of $44,100 or less may qualify if it meets certain criteria.
So, Pittsylvania County Community Action Inc. will implement the Virginia Health Care Foundation’s Project Connect outreach initiative to enroll eligible children in the health insurance program. The Danville Regional Foundation is providing funds of $485,800 over a three-year period to pay for Project Connect caseworkers.“It will take a lot of community outreach,” said Sherman Saunders, executive director of the community action agency. “It’ll certainly be a grassroots effort and we’ll exercise all avenues available to us to reach the people.”
Pittsylvania County Community Action will hire three case managers to work both in the city and county to find families and work directly with them to do the paperwork to get enrolled in FAMIS and FAMIS Plus, said Marsha Mendenhall, director of planning and budget for the local agency.
FAMIS is not a welfare program, the Virginia Health Care Foundation emphasizes. It could help a lot of families who lost their jobs or are underemployed because of the recession. As health insurance costs rise, many employers may not offer health insurance or employees may not be able to afford adding their children or families to their plans, Mendenhall added.
PCCAwill participate in community events and will work closely with school systems and employers to get the word out, Mendenhall said. It hopes to hire three case managers and train them to start working by Jan. 15, 2010.
The health care foundation estimates enrolling all the children in the program would bring an economic value of $3.5 million, or $1,500 per child to the area. Health providers can be reimbursed for services and parents may not miss work because of sick kids.
“Families often give up when they have obstacles that they don’t know how to meet. A lot of people don’t know they qualify,” Mendenhall said. “We would love to have every child that qualifies enrolled and to establish a medical home.”
Fast facts
So far, the Virginia Health Care Foundation has helped to enroll more than 50,000 Virginia children in health insurance.
Pittsylvania County Community Action, Inc. seeks to raise awareness about poverty, eliminate conditions that cause poverty and through those efforts seeks to improve quality of life in its communities.
