As 2011 draws to a close, now is a great opportunity to take a moment to reflect on all the things SHAP states have accomplished over the past year. Back in February, we started the SHAP DiaBlog to share highlights and lessons from states’ SHAP work, so that states could learn from each other and celebrate their work. Below we have compiled many DiaBlog posts from this year. Whether you’re seeing these posts for the first time or feeling nostalgic, these posts provide some fascinating highlights of the great work SHAP states have done on a variety of topics this past year.
Working with Employers
This first installment of a series of posts from the annual SHAP grantee meeting in August 2011 focuses on some of the lessons shared by Texas, Washington, and Virginia regarding their work with small employers…(read more)
Small businesses employ over 42 million Americans, yet many struggle to purchase or maintain coverage for their employees. New opportunities offered by the ACA, including the Small Business Health Care Tax Credit, better position these employers to offer coverage…(read more)
Every small business owner sees the value of providing health insurance for employees. However, maintaining health insurance for employees can be very costly—making it difficult for small business employers to afford. An option for states to assist small businesses and their employees is to create Multi-Share Arrangements…(read more)
Benefit Design
NASHP’s Leigha Basini presented five major lessons for state policymakers on affordability from children’s coverage. In addition, SHAP states shared their experiences with making coverage more affordable…(read more)
Enrollment and Retention
Kindle Fahlenkamp-Morell, a State Refor(u)m Social Media Fellow, blogged about some of the lessons on eligibility and enrollment that states shared during NASHP’s State Health Policy Conference in October 2011. In her post, Kindle described some of the challenges that states will face in coordinating enrollment across programs…(read more)
NASHP’s Chris Cantrell highlights some of the fruitful conversations that states had at the annual SHAP grantee meeting around enrolling people into public programs…(read more)
Studies show that many consumers who qualify for Medicaid and other government funded programs do not enroll due to the complexities of the enrollment and redetermination processes. Therefore, outreach and education to assist these consumers has become critical to successful coverage expansion efforts…(read more)
States have had plenty of experience with enrollment in the past, but the recent experience with enrolling people into coverage through the SHAP provides some fresh insight for states as they prepare to enroll large numbers of newly eligible individuals…(read more)
Undocumented individuals are a unique population in the U.S., and when compared to the U.S. population as a whole. While many SHAP programs are restricted to citizens based on federal laws, SHAP states are grappling with how they can derive lessons to help states serve this population as well…(read more)
NASHP’s Kathy Witgert provides an overview of a state-to-state meeting on enrollment where participants discussed ways that states can use technology and systems solutions to minimize unnecessary paper-based processes…(read more)
When creating new insurance initiatives many states choose to target specific audiences, grouping individuals in any number of ways including by age, geography, income, or family status…(read more)
Delivery System Improvement
On November 4, the National Health Policy Forum hosted a discussion to examine the roles of health practitioner scopes of practice. Four speakers provided information about the current situation, the views of various professions, what states have done, and what state and federal policymakers should consider…(read more)
NASHP’s Christina Miller examines how some SHAP grantees have taken a multi-faceted approach to bettering their health care and insurance systems for underserved populations…(read more)
The SHAP programs are unified by their goal to expand coverage to previously uninsured populations. As the ACA is implemented, many questions arise for safety net providers about their role in serving these and other vulnerable populations. NASHP recently brought together state and federal officials, national experts, and safety net representatives to discuss some of these questions…(read more)
Medical homes show early promise for improving care delivery and bending the cost curve. NASHP’s Jason Buxbaum shared thoughts and lessons from NASHP’s 3rd State Consortium to Advance Medical Homes in Medicaid and CHIP held last spring…(read more)
Health Reform and SHAP
The Affordable Care Act includes a variety of grant opportunities that states can pursue to support their implementation efforts. While the latest hot topic has been the exchange establishment grants, the ACA also provides grants to support state…(read more)
By 2019, it is estimated that nearly 29 million Americans will purchase their health insurance through the newly established Health Benefit Exchanges. New insurance rules and opportunities, as well as the unique characteristics of the anticipated exchange population, make for complex enrollment issues, and consumers will likely need assistance to steer them through exchange plans…(read more)
Although health literacy is not a large focus in the ACA, there are a few opportunities in the law to address health literacy issues, which SHAP states can leverage to bolster their existing efforts…(read more)
