Southeast Healthcare is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and a comprehensive provider of mental health, chemical dependency, primary healthcare, vocational, dentistry, and homeless services that serves more than 20,000 people each year with offices in eight Ohio counties. Ohio is the 7th largest state by population. Southeast proposes to serve individuals in ten Ohio counties: Belmont, Carroll, Delaware, Franklin, Guernsey, Harrison, Jefferson, Monroe, and Tuscarawas. To accomplish this, Southeast will employ4 full-time employees to work as Navigators and 1 part-time Project Manager/Navigator working a total of 4.5 FTE year round. Total federal funding requested for year 2 is $287,022. The Southeast Navigator program will not have any sub-recipients.
Southeast's Navigator staff are well-trained and have extensive experience serving the public. In addition to the CMS training they receive, Southeast trains the Navigators extensively in ensuring privacy, security, and in working with individuals from culturally diverse backgrounds. Southeast has been providing outreach and enrollment assistance as well as "coverage to care" assistance to Ohio consumers as a subgrantee/member of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks Consortium from 2013-2017, as Certified Application Counselors from 2017-2019, and since 2019 as a Navigator program grantee. Southeast has long-term relationships with consumers, small businesses, job placement programs, health care providers, managed care plans for Medicaid and Marketplace, faith-based, and community groups. Southeast has a proven record of working with diverse populations coming from a broad range of educational, financial, and cultural and ethnic backgrounds, including those with limited English proficiency. Southeast will provide in-person professional enrollment assistance to Ohioans in 10 Counties. Franklin County, the most populous, has a disproportionately high number of vulnerable and underserved communities of people living in poverty, individuals who identify as LGBTQ, and ethnic groups including African American, Latino, and Asian as well as a disproportionately high number of people living with HIV. Seven of the counties are in rural Appalachia where the health markers and insured rates are below the state and national averages and residents face many barriers in accessing health care.