Applying Technology to Increase Health Insurance Enrollment

Grantee Name

Public Health Solutions

Funding Area

Expanding Health Care Coverage

Publication Date

November 2011

Grant Amount

$75,000

Grant Date:

July 2009 – April 2011

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Approximately one million New Yorkers are estimated to be eligible for public health insurance but are not enrolled.

To help reach these people, New York State designates a network of “facilitated enrollers” (FEs) to identify and assist eligible individuals with signing up for public health insurance programs such as Medicaid, Child Health Plus, and Family Health Plus. Public Health Solutions (PHS) has been an FE since 2001 and is active in Kings County, New York County, and Queens County. Until recently, FEs had to rely on an entirely paper-based process that is time-consuming, error-prone, and redundant. For this grant, PHS was able to fully implement an electronic application process. As a result, the number of daily applications completed per FE increased from 4.8 to 5.9—a 24% increase.

Outcomes and Lessons Learned

Purchased an annual subscription to certified software (Bluemark), laptops, scanners, and printers to fully automate the application process.
Trained FEs to use the electronic application software.
Conducted four months of formal testing of the system by submitting applications electronically to HRA.
Transitioned all processing of applications to the automated system.
Summarized the lessons learned from transitioning from paper-based to electronic applications in an issue brief that was disseminated to other FEs.

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