NEW TOOLKIT AVAILABLE FOR BACK-TO-SCHOOL OUTREACH

Please note that for the summer the NDNRC Update is being released on a biweekly basis.

Are you looking for ways to use the upcoming Back-To-School season as a way to do outreach to enroll children and teens in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)? As part of CMS’s Insure Kids Now program, they have developed a Back-To-School toolkit that can be used for outreach over the next month and a half. The toolkit includes tips and ideas as well as cards which can be handed out to parents and these cards are available in multiple languages. There’s also social media messages that you can use to promote enrollment during the Back-to School season. To access the toolkit, click here.

A new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute looks at how successful state-based marketplaces have been with implementing standardized benefit design. To read more about this report or to download a copy, click here to read our news item.

Previously we reported on the new regulations released in May by HHS addressing the non-discrimination provisions in the ACA. This week, Health Affairs published a new blog post which addresses how the non-discrimination provisions relate to chronic conditions. To read this blog post, click here. You can also check out our prior news item on the non-discrimination rules where there are links to HHS fact sheets explaining the final regulations, the statement from the HHS Office for Civil Rights and a link to the rules themselves. That news item is available here.

Do you do any enrollment work with the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP)? This week the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the enrollment manual for the upcoming open enrollment period for the SHOP. To read more about this manual or to download a copy, read our news item by clicking here. You can also read more about the SHOP Manual in a blog post by Health Affairs by clicking here.

Our colleagues at the University of Washington, Healthy Aging Rehabilitation Research Training Center (RRTC) have a series of Factsheets and Plain Language Research summaries that are available. Their newest fact sheet they released is entitled “Tips for Improving Memory & Thinking” and is available here. The RRTC is a federally funded research and training center, tasked with promoting healthy aging for persons living with a long-term physical disability.  The RRTC is funded by National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDLRR), an agency within the Administration on Community Living (ACL). Learn more about the RRTC here.

A new issue brief entitled “How Has the Affordable Care Act Affected Health Insurers’ Financial Performance?” was released by the Commonwealth Fund this week. To read more about the issue brief or to download a copy, check out our news item by clicking here.

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 our project. This includes the eleven that were funded last year, plus seven new locations in six new states. The COCs 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.