Outreach crucial in choosing health insurance
A study has found that community outreach and educational support for navigating health insurance options available in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace are crucial for helping people choose the best plan based on their individual needs. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, health policy experts at the Missouri Foundation for Health, and health communication and community partners at Health Literacy Media and the Cover Missouri Coalition, noted that such efforts at the state level likely contributed to a higher enrolment in ACA plans among Missourians in 2018 than in 2017.
“Health insurance education and decision support is critical to enrolment," said the study's first author Dr Mary Politi, an Associate Professor of Surgery and a Health Psychologist in the University's Division of Public Health Sciences. “The lessons learned from our collective efforts offer key strategies for health insurance enrolment in Missouri and on a national level for 2019 and beyond. This is particularly important because far fewer resources are being allocated to education and outreach.”
Politi said that there are multiple factors between the higher enrolment rate in 2018, including that some people may have lost employer-based health insurance, some might have realised the benefits of health insurance protection and others may have gone on and off Medicaid due to variable incomes. However, that health insurance education likely played a role in the enrolment uptick among Missourians.