Thursday, December 26, 2024
12/26/2024
Swope Health Services, a Federally Qualified Health Center/federal health safety net organization, requests support for the Connecting Kids To Coverage project to enroll underserved, low-income children and pregnant women in Missouri’s Medicaid program, MO HealthNet, and to help them re-enroll and maintain coverage over the three-year cooperative agreement. We propose to assist Medicaid-eligible persons in the four western Missouri counties of Cass, Clay, Jackson and Platte. Our goals include: 1) assemble a trained Medicaid application assistance team to provide outreach and direct technical assistance to consumers in Swope Health’s four county Missouri service area; 2) develop an outreach campaign for the Missouri service area that includes collaborations with community organizations and the use of social media to promote awareness about the benefits of Medicaid/CHIP coverage; 3) assist over 1,400 low-income families with children age 1 to 18 with submitting Medicaid/CHIP applications over the three-year cooperative agreement; 4) assist over 1,400 low-income, pregnant women with obtaining Medicaid coverage for their pregnancy care and for their infant; and 5) assist Medicaid and CHIP eligible children’s parents with Medicaid applications, when they are eligible, as part of the family application process. Our CKC project team, hired and trained during the 90-day planning period, will include a fulltime Project Director and two fulltime Patient Advocates. All CKC will be trained to assist consumers with submitting MO HealthNet applications and added as Tier One employees to the Missouri Department of Social Services’ Missouri Eligibility Determination and Enrollment System (MEDES) to check application status as cited under our existing Memorandum of Understanding with MO DSS. The CKC project staff will join Swope Health’s existing Medicaid Specialists, Patient Advocates and CMS-funded Navigators in expanding insurance coverage for the area’s low- income, underserved population. Our target population is low-income children and pregnant women that met MO HealthNet income guidelines for programs offering comprehensive services. This population includes members of our 41,000-plus patient population who are 69% racial minority and 21% Hispanic, of whom 61% have incomes below 200% Federal Poverty Level. Swope Health currently does not have staff to assist patients and consumers at our satellite clinics or to travel with our mobile health teams to community sites. Currently, 6% of Cass County children, 4.8% of Clay County children, 6.2% of Jackson County children and 5.2% of Platte County children are estimated to be uninsured. We will work with our community collaborators, which include Head Starts and school districts, many of whom are reached by our mobile health teams, to promote National Campaign activities, including Back-To-School and Year-Round Enrollment as well as maintaining enrollment. Swope Health also holds its own events for the urban community, which will include the CKC team presence. With a 53-year history of exemplary service to low-income residents in need, Swope Health Services has the organizational capacity, the experience, and the full commitment of the entire agency to increase the number of children and pregnant women newly enrolled in and renewed for Medicaid coverage. Swope Health is applying as an individual applicant. Our total request for the three-year cooperative agreement is $739,918 with $248,203 requested in Year 1, $242,488 requested in Year 2 and $249,227 requested in Year 3. These funds will be used to support the three CKC project staff, their travel across the community, social media training and supplies, including laptop computers and cellphones and the printing of National Campaign education and promotion materials.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).