NATIONAL COUNCIL ON DISABILITY RELEASES ACA REPORT

Earlier this week, the National Council on Disability (NCD) released the first of three reports on the ACA and disability entitled “Implementing the Affordable Care Act: A Roadmap for People with Disabilities.” To read more about this report and to download a copy of the report, read our news item by clicking here.

Yesterday, the NDNRC presented on a webinar hosted by NDNRC partner organization, United Spinal Association. The slide for this presentation have been uploaded to the NDNRC website and can be found on our “Webinars/Presentations” page here.

Yesterday, the Kaiser Family Foundation released a new survey entitled “Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility, Enrollment, Renewal, and Cost-Sharing Policies as of January 2016.” To read more about what is covered in the survey, check out our news item which includes a link to download a copy of the report by clicking here.

HHS has previously reported that participation by carriers on the federally facilitated exchanges has remained stable from Year Two to Year Three. But how are the State Based Marketplaces (SBMs) faring? The Commonwealth Fund has a new blog post that looks at this very issue and finds that the large majority of SBMs are remaining stable in insurance carrier participation or are gaining insurers to the market. To read the full blog post, click here. Speaking of the SBMs, the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) recently posted a report on how outreach and enrollment is going in 14 of the SBMs. To read the NASHP report, click here.

There’s just over a week left in open enrollment so make sure you have all the NDNRC resources you need to assist individuals with disabilities. To access our “Guide to Disability for Healthcare Insurance Marketplace Navigators” click here. We have also released 17 topical fact sheets which address issues such as getting answers to what is covered by qualified health plans, rehabilitation and habilitation services and devices, prescription medication benefits, mental health and substance abuse parity and the process for Medicaid eligibility. All of these topical fact sheets are available here. Finally, so far we have released eight population specific fact sheets which provide navigators and other enrollment specialists with information they need to help specific populations within the disability community. The population specific fact sheets we have released so far are as follows:

• What to Know When Assisting Children and Adults in the Autism Community
• What to Know When Assisting a Consumer who has Experienced or is at Risk for Blood Clots
• What to Know When Assisting a Consumer with a Child with Special Health Care Needs
• What to Know When Assisting a Consumer with Intellectual Disability
• What to Know When Assisting a Consumer with Mental Illness
• What to Know When Assisting a Consumer with Multiple Sclerosis
• What to Know When Assisting a Consumer with Traumatic Brain Injury
• Information for Veterans Regarding Department of Veterans Affairs Healthcare

Are you looking for local partners to help with outreach to the disability community? The NDNRC is funding eighteen Community Outreach Collaboratives (COCs) for the third year of enrollment. This includes the eleven that were funded last year, plus seven new locations in six new states. The COCs will increase collaborations in the community, dissemination and outreach efforts and enrollment of people with disabilities in the ACA. To find a COC, click here.

To access the archives for our weekly updates click here.