CMS NAVIGATOR FUNDING ANNOUNCED FOR OE6
Note: through the summer months, we will be sending the NDNRC Update every other Friday.
On Tuesday, CMS released its Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for the sixth open enrollment period (OE6). To read the CMS announcement, check out their press release. Applications are due August 9th. Funding available this year represents a significant cut from funding levels in prior years and Families USA has released a statement explaining the importance of the navigator program and calls on Congress to require greater funding for this important program.
CMS has also recently posted its application for organizations who wish to be identified as Certified Application Counselors (CACs) and it has posted the online training required for CACs which is available in the CMS portal.
Earlier this month, CMS issued three reports which summarize the final enrollment numbers for the 2018 plan year. These reports were on the Early 2018 Effectuated Enrollment Snapshot, the Exchanges Trends Report and the Trends in Subsidized and Unsubsidized Individual Health Insurance Market Enrollment. The Health Affairs blog also has a post examining the key findings of these reports.
A new issue brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation examines the potential effects of a nationwide work requirement for Medicaid. To read more about this brief or to download a copy, check out our news item.
Two weeks ago today, a federal court halted the work requirements in Kentucky that had been approved by CMS and were to go into effect on July 1st. To read more about this decision and for more resources on it, check out our news item.
If you want to learn more about Medicaid work requirements, we published a blog post in February which captures all the news and resources on the waivers where states are adding work requirements to their Medicaid programs.
If you missed it two weeks ago, we announced the release of our social media toolkit for Medicaid. The toolkit provides sample social media posts as well as graphics and relevant hashtags which can be combined to promote the importance of the Medicaid program and how important it is for people with disabilities. The toolkit also provides lists of social media accounts to follow, digital materials, our news stories on Medicaid work requirements and Medicaid statistics. The toolkit is available on the NDNRC website where it can be downloaded as a zip drive.
The Young Invincibles recently did a webinar on the special enrollment period (SEP) pre-enrollment verification process. That webinar has been archived and the slides and recording are now available. They can also be found on our Resources & Links page under “Enrollment Resources – Overview.”
If you want to learn more about our new project with the NIH’s All of Us Research Project, check out the archived slides and transcript from the webinar we did for the Friends of NCBDDD last month.
The University of Washington – Healthy Aging Rehabilitation Research Training Center (RRTC) has released a plain language research summary on “The Benefits of Happiness and Finding Your Sense of Purpose.”
Are you looking for local partners to help with outreach to the disability community? The NDNRC has Community Outreach Collaboratives (COCs) which work to increase collaborations in the community, dissemination and outreach efforts and enrollment of people with disabilities in the ACA marketplace. You can find a COC, on the COC page of our website.
Archives of our weekly updates are available on the NDNRC website.