HHS Announces Partnerships to Encourage Latino Enrollment through HealthCare.gov
Today, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra announced commitments from national organizations to support Latino outreach and enrollment efforts during the current Special Enrollment Period (SEP) made available on HealthCare.gov by President Biden due to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. As part of the Latino Week of Action, April 18 – 24, these organizations and HHS will share information with Latino consumers and use social media to encourage them to enroll in affordable, quality health plans through HealthCare.gov.
“Helping communities take advantage of reduced costs on quality health care coverage is a priority for this Department. In addition to putting our money where our mouth is, we are partnering with key organizations representing the Latino community to engage their knowledge and network to promote enrollment in quality, affordable health insurance coverage during this Special Enrollment Period,” said HHS Secretary Becerra. “To the many Latinos who may have lost health care coverage during the pandemic, I am here to tell you that ‘help is here.’ Health care coverage is more affordable for people and assistance is available if you need help finding a health plan that best meets your needs.”
New *Health Insurance Subsidies* Available Now at HealthCare.gov; Department of Insurance and Financial Services Ready to Answer Questions About New Opportunities to Save on Health Insurance
Call or Text (616) 896-4600 to sign up for health insurance TODAY!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 1, 2021
(LANSING, MICH) New Health Insurance Marketplace subsidies that will help more Michiganders afford health insurance are available now on HealthCare.gov. The increased subsidies are part of the American Rescue Plan, which was signed into law in March.
“With these increased subsidies, working families’ monthly savings could be substantial, but the sooner you start the process the more you could save overall,” said Governor Gretchen Whitmer. “A family of four making $120,000 per year could save approximately $259 per month, while a 60-year-old married couple could save as much as $943 per month for the rest of 2021. Getting started today ensures that you and your family have the health coverage you need while saving the most money possible on your coverage.”
The Health Insurance Marketplace and application process, available at HealthCare.gov, has been updated to reflect both the extended special enrollment period and the newly expanded tax credits from the American Rescue Plan. Michiganders who need Marketplace health coverage should start a Marketplace application by visiting the Health Insurance Marketplace or by calling 800-318-2596 (TTY: 1-855-889-4325). Coverage will start on the first of the month after a plan is selected, so coverage will start May 1 for plans selected in April.
Consumers who already have a Marketplace plan should return to the Marketplace and update their 2021 application to see if they qualify for expanded tax credits and take immediate advantage of the higher subsidies. Individuals who choose not to revisit their application will not be able to lower their monthly health coverage premiums this year and will have to wait until they file their 2021 tax returns in 2022 to get the expanded tax credits for which they qualify. Consumers should know that selecting a new plan under this extended special enrollment period may trigger a reset of their annual deductible for 2021.
“Overall, an estimated 67,000 uninsured Michiganders now qualify for lower-cost coverage, and approximately 16,000 should be eligible for no-cost coverage through these increased subsidies,” said the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) Director Anita Fox. “If you’re unsure how to start taking advantage of these new opportunities, Shield Insurance Agency and DIFS is here to help through our live call center, by email, or with our online resources.”
DIFS can help consumers with health insurance questions and complaints and can provide information about the Health Insurance Marketplace Special Enrollment Period that is now open through August 15. For more information, including a schedule of upcoming virtual health insurance town halls from DIFS and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, consumers should visit Michigan.gov/HealthInsurance, contact DIFS via email, or call 877-999-6442 Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The mission of the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services is to ensure access to safe and secure insurance and financial services fundamental for the opportunity, security, and success of Michigan residents, while fostering economic growth and sustainability in both industries. In addition, the Department provides consumer protection, outreach, and financial literacy and education services to Michigan residents. For more information, visit Michigan.gov/DIFS or follow the Department on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
Experiencing a workplace injury is understandably stressful for any employee and trauma can be exacerbated when employers focus on medical costs and missing staff hours instead of the employee’s well-being. With today’s advocacy-based worker’s compensation model, however, employers are seeking to fix this inherent conflict, with many now intent on changing the relationship – from adversary to advocate.
“The way you treat an injured worker can have a material impact on the life of the claim,” says Wesley Hyatt, Senior Vice President, Workers Compensation Claims, Liberty Mutual Insurance, and Helmsman Management Services LLC. “Injured worker advocacy is a mindset that starts with the goal that ‘we’re here to help this injured person’ versus just moving claims along by checking boxes.”
Here are three reasons why injured worker advocacy is driving a paradigm shift in how forward-looking employers manage the claims process.
1. Open communication builds trust and confidence in the process
Creating consistent, clear, and open communication in a way that puts an injured worker’s needs first is a key part of the advocacy approach. Every outreach should reassure injured workers that their claims and clinical teams are working in their best interests. After all, along with recovering from the injury, an employee must also work through the complex worker’s compensation (WC) claims process – often for the very first time.
To achieve the goal of open communication, employers are changing the language used throughout the process to eliminate jargon and replace negative wording with positive terms. For example, “covered” is now substituted for “compensable,” and “claims examiner” is replaced by “claims representative.”
Another example of improving the employee experience is Liberty Mutual’s SmartVideo, a personalized, two-minute video that’s automatically sent via email to an injured worker whose claim meets certain WC criteria. Accessible via computer, tablet, or mobile device, the video outlines important claims information and available tools.
“The idea is to expand on the human connection between adjuster and worker, alleviating an employee’s stress and fears of the unknown,” Hyatt says. “It’s not just about what you say, but how you say it and deliver it.”
The takeaway: the tone used and ease of information provided from the very first contact with an injured worker sets the course for the entire claim.
“The way you treat an injured worker can have a material impact on the life of the claim.” – Wesley Hyatt, Senior Vice President, Workers Compensation Claims
2. Responsive follow-up leads to faster return-to-work
With data showing that as many as 18% of injured workers never reach the ability to return to work in the same capacity, connecting frequently with progress check-ins and additional resources can inform a proactive – and realistic – post-recovery evaluation.
Anticipating a worker’s needs in a holistic way demonstrates that their well-being is a priority, says Debbie Michel, Executive Vice President, National Insurance Risk Management, Liberty Mutual Insurance. “Think about the whole person, not just the specific injury,” she says.
“Anticipating a worker’s needs in a holistic way demonstrates that their well-being is a priority.” – Debbie Michel, Executive Vice President, National Insurance Risk Management
Nurse case managers can use motivational interviewing and therapeutic listening to help identify other factors that may affect an employee’s return to work – and coordinate additional services if needed.
Another way to reinforce employer support is by empowering the employee with a range of choices, Michel says. Options can include a gradual part-time to full-time transition, providing temporary limited duty or alternate work tasks, and temporarily working remotely.
The takeaway: returning to work full time after an injury doesn’t always have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Keeping an injured worker engaged and empowered through the recovery process can strengthen the employer-employee relationship and better prepare for a successful return to work plan.
Shield Insurance Agency & Foremost Insurance Company present Insurance Terms
Every industry has its own unique language – and insurance is no exception. Here are some key insurance definitions and terms you might come across as you consider insuring yourself or your stuff.
Stress can be debilitating, and it can cause and/or aggravate health problems. And since stress is a normal part of human existence — nobody is immune to it — it’s important to arm ourselves with knowledge so that we recognize when stress rears its ugly head. (Amazingly, we don’t always notice it’s happening to us.) Stress Awareness Month happens each April. It’s important to learn some strategies for coping with this particular silent scourge. You’ve come to the right place for that. Let’s get started!
STRESS AWARENESS MONTH TIMELINE
HOW TO OBSERVE STRESS AWARENESS MONTH
1. Practice meditation
One of the most effective ways to deal with stress is to learn how to silence the mind. Meditation is one of the most popular methods of achieving this quiet.
2. Exercise
Another way to battle the debilitating effects of stress is to exercise. Whether you’re a jogger, bicyclist our just like to take long walks, be sure to get some fresh air and exercise into your daily routine.
3. Visit your doctor
They’re really in the best position to get your started on the path to a stress-free lifestyle. Make an appointment today.
4 STRESSFUL FACTS YOU NEED TO KNOW
Stress can help — sometimes
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, “stress can motivate people to prepare or perform and might even be life-saving in some situations.”
It’s sickening — literally
People under stress – especially those prone to chronic stress — are more susceptible to a variety of ailments, from headaches and insomnia to high blood pressure and heart disease.
Stressed? Here’s why
A survey by the American Psychological Association found that the five factors most often cited as a source of stress were money, work, family, economic outlook, and relationships.
America’s highest and lowest stress states
A report on WalletHub found that the most stressed-out states in America are Louisiana, New Mexico, and West Virginia. The least? Minnesota, North Dakota, and Utah.
On World Health Day, 7 April 2021, we will be inviting you to join a new campaign to build a fairer, healthier world. We’ll be posting more details here shortly, but here’s why we’re doing this:
Our world is an unequal one.
As COVID-19 has highlighted, some people can live healthier lives and have better access to health services than others – entirely due to the conditions in which they are born, grow, live, work and age.
All over the world, some groups struggle to make ends meet with little daily income, have poorer housing conditions and education, fewer employment opportunities, experience greater gender inequality, and have little or no access to safe environments, clean water, and air, food security, and health services. This leads to unnecessary suffering, avoidable illness, and premature death. And it harms our societies and economies.
This is not only unfair: it is preventable.
That’s why we are calling on leaders to ensure that everyone has living and working conditions that are conducive to good health. At the same time, we urge leaders to monitor health inequities and to ensure that all people can access quality health services when and where they need them.
COVID-19 has hit all countries hard, but its impact has been harshest on those communities which were already vulnerable, who are more exposed to the disease, less likely to have access to quality health care services, and more likely to experience adverse consequences as a result of measures implemented to contain the pandemic.
World Health Organization is committed to ensuring that everyone, everywhere, can realize the right to good health.
Downtown GR Now Offering Free Spring Walking Tours
Topics include public art, history and notable landmarks
Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. partnered with Grand Rapids Running Tours to offer visitors free walking tours around Downtown Grand Rapids throughout this spring season.
These walking tours explore topics ranging from public art, history and iconic Downtown landmarks.
All tours meet at Rosa Parks Circle and no registration is necessary. First come, first serve. Please bring your masks.
See the full schedule below.
Rad Women Walking Tours
March 30, 9:00 – 11:30 AM
This #WomensHistoryMonth, celebrate the #RadAmericanWomen throughout history via public art and FREE walking tours around #DowntownGR! The artwork and tours are based on the New York Times bestselling book “Rad American Women A-Z” by Kate Schatz. With a total of 27 works of public art on electrical boxes featuring portraits of #RadWomen from Angela Davis to Zora Neale Hurston, the tour will give you a background on each public figure and the Rad Local Artist behind each artwork.
Miles of Murals Walking Tours
April 7, 6:00 PM., Miles of Murals Part One Walking Tour April 14, 10:00 AM, Miles of Murals Part One Walking Tour April 21, 6:00 PM, Miles of Murals Part Two Walking Tour April 28, 10:00 AM, Miles of Murals Part Two Walking Tour
Who says art museums must be inside, enclosed with 4 walls, a ceiling, and a floor? Swirling all about us in Grand Rapids are intriguing artworks on sides of buildings, underneath highway overpasses, on retaining walls, street surfaces, and utility boxes. These are murals – street and wall artworks – painted by artists that celebrate beauty, calls to action, or tributes to heroes. The murals transform otherwise unnoticeable – or worse – blighted spaces into a must-see, energizing attraction. Viewing these murals is a study in local history, community activism, and sheer expressions of creativity… art all the time! So many murals, so little time – so the walk is divided into two parts… we pick up where we left off when we meet for Part Two.
Over the past ten years, healthcare costs have risen steadily each year as treatment and care options have become more sophisticated and advanced. As a result, corporate health insurance buyers are looking for more effective solutions to manage their healthcare spend, which is their biggest cost behind payroll.
For employers who choose to self-fund their health insurance programs, employer stop-loss insurance protects those groups against large or catastrophic claims, as an alternative to traditional group health insurance and benefits plans. The medical stop-loss insurance sector has experienced dramatic growth in recent years as more employers migrate to self-funded health insurance programs, which offer customizable coverage for employees with disciplined cost containment oversight.
Karthik Mohan, vice president of sales & distribution for the medical stop-loss group at Liberty Mutual Insurance, outlines how medical stop-loss insurance can help organizations keep pace with medical inflation.
The value of medical stop-loss insurance for self-funded health insurance programs
Today, approximately 61% of U.S. employers self-fund their health insurance programs, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s 2019 Employer Health Benefits Report Annual Survey. Frequently, those same employers purchase medical stop-loss insurance, which is a financial management tool that transfers the liability risk arising from large, unexpected claims, like cancer treatments, new therapies for complex conditions, and organ transplants, to an insurance carrier – sparing the employer from unpredictable, catastrophic medical claim costs that can materially impact an organization’s cash flow and bottom line.
Medical stop loss insurance is typically offered with two types of deductible options:
Specific Stop Loss, or “Spec” deductible, for individual stop loss insurance. Coverage protects the self-insured employer in the event of a severe or significantly costly claim for an individual member of the group plan receiving the care, such as a rare cancer condition, new drug treatment or gene and cell therapies
Aggregate Stop Loss, or “Agg” deductible, for group claims. Coverage protects the self-insured employer that experiences medical claims under the group plan that exceed the cap placed on the policy term for the coverage.
Under these programs, the stop loss insurance carrier reimburses the employer for healthcare financial losses above the contractual policy deductible limit.
Christine Zellers tries to run five miles every day and, at 53, considers herself to be in shape. But even she admits that gardening can leave her sore and achy.
“I feel it, especially in the beginning of the season,” she says.
Zellers, an assistant professor of family and community health sciences with Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Cape May County, New Jersey, teaches gardening, leads group exercise classes, and grows vegetables and herbs in her own garden in Ocean City, New Jersey. To protect her body, she tries to remember to stretch and limber up before heading out to dig, plant, or lug big pots around.
“You want to be thinking about the kind of movement you’re going to do and make sure you’re strengthening those body parts, like your core and your back and your legs and your quadriceps,” she says. “So you want to warm up a little bit just like you would if you were going for a run or doing an exercise class.”
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) national emergency has presented unprecedented challenges for the American public and Healthcare enrollment. Millions of Americans are facing uncertainty and millions of Americans are experiencing new health problems during the pandemic. Due to the exceptional circumstances and rapidly changing Public Health Emergency (PHE) impacting millions of people throughout the US every day, many Americans remain uninsured or underinsured and still need affordable health coverage. In accordance with the Executive Order issued today by President Biden, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) determined that the COVID-19 emergency presents exceptional circumstances for consumers in accessing health insurance and will provide a Special Healthcare Enrollment Period (SEP) for individuals and families to apply and enroll in the coverage they need. This SEP will be available to consumers in the 36 states served by Marketplaces that use the HealthCare.gov platform, and CMS will conduct outreach activities to encourage those who are eligible to enroll in healthcare coverage. CMS strongly encourages states to operate their own Marketplace platforms to make a similar enrollment opportunity available to consumers in their states.
Starting on February 15, 2021, and continuing through May 15, 2021, Marketplaces using the HealthCare.gov platform will operationalize functionality to make a Special Enrollment Period available to all Marketplace-eligible consumers who are submitting a new application or updating an existing application. These consumers will newly be able to access the SEP through a variety of channels: through HealthCare.gov directly, the Marketplace call center, or direct healthcare enrollment channels. Additionally, consumers can work with a network of over 50,000 agents and brokers who are registered with the Marketplace, along with over 8,000 trained assisters, ready to assist consumers with their application for coverage.
To promote the SEP and ensure that a broad and diverse range of consumers is aware of this implementation, CMS will conduct an outreach campaign in cooperation with community and stakeholder organizations, focused on education and awareness of this new opportunity to enroll in English, Spanish, and other languages. CMS outreach efforts will use a mix of paid advertising and direct outreach to consumers. Outreach efforts will include considerable awareness-building efforts to encourage the uninsured and those who come to HealthCare.gov to explore coverage to continue the process and enroll. CMS plans to spend $50 million on outreach and education, on a mix of tactics to increase awareness, including advertisements on broadcast, digital, and an earned media.
Some consumers may already be eligible for other existing SEPs, Medicaid, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) – they can visit HealthCare.gov now to find out if they can enroll even before this new SEP. Starting February 15, consumers seeking to take advantage of this SEP can find out if they are eligible by visiting HealthCare.gov, and are no longer limited to calling the Marketplace call center to access this SEP. Consumers who are eligible and enroll under this SEP will be able to select a plan with coverage that starts prospectively the first of the month after plan selection. Consumers will have 30 days after they submit their application to choose a plan. Current enrollees will be able to change to any available plan in their area without restriction to the same level of coverage as their current plan. To use this SEP, current enrollees will need to step through their application and make any changes if needed to their current information and submit their application to receive an updated eligibility result that provides the SEP before continuing to enrollment. This SEP opportunity will not involve any new application questions or require consumers or enrollment partners to provide any new information not otherwise required to determine eligibility and enroll in coverage. In addition, consumers won’t need to provide any documentation of a qualifying event (e.g., loss of a job or birth of a child), which is typically required for SEP eligibility.
As always, consumers found eligible for Medicaid or CHIP will be transferred to their state Medicaid and CHIP agencies for enrollment in those programs.
